Dawn for Islam in Eastern Nigeria: A History of the Arrival of Islam in Igboland

DEDICATION In memory of my father, Dr. (M.D.) Moses Ukasonwa Ozo (1925–2008), to all who aspire to write the history of Islam in Eastern Nigeria and to all who provided information for this book.

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements .........................................................................................................9 Illustrations .....................................................................................................................10 Preface .............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................15 The Overview ........................................................................................................15 Sketching the Landscape ......................................................................................19 Religious diversification .......................................................................................27 Igbo—Hausa Relations ..........................................................................................28 Pattern of Religious Expansion in Nigeria .......................................................30 Conceptual clarification .......................................................................................30 The Question of Numbers: Are Igbo Muslims worth studying? ..................35

1. EASTERN NIGERIA BEFORE 1920 .........................................................................39 The journey of Islam towards the Southeast ...................................................39 Earliest inter-ethnic contacts ..............................................................................43 On the trail of the Elephant Hunters .................................................................50 The Organization of the hunt .............................................................................58 Forms of interaction with migrants ...................................................................66

2. THE BEGINNINGS OF ISLAM IN IGBOLAND, 1920–1950 .................................73 The Case of Enugu Ezike .....................................................................................82 Islam in Ibagwa .....................................................................................................93 Women as agents of spread .................................................................................95 Expansion of Strangers’ Settlements and Barriers to proselytization .........97

3. THE EXPANSION OF ISLAM AFTER 1950 ............................................................103 Post 1950 Developments ....................................................................................103 Extending Islam to Owerri ................................................................................105 The Enohia (Anohia) awakening of 1958 .......................................................106 The Civil War Years ...........................................................................................113 Reconstruction and Rehabilitation: The Mbaise affair .................................124 Extending Islam to Nsukka Town ...................................................................129 Enohia after the war ...........................................................................................131 Other new grounds .............................................................................................134 7

4. CONTACTS AND CONVERSIONS: THE PROPAGATION OF ISLAM IN IGBOLAND .....................................................135 Hausa traders and cattle markets .....................................................................136 The Igbo and their guests: Ambivalent relations ..........................................144 Migrants among themselves .............................................................................151 Da‘wa and the Spread of Islam in Igboland ...................................................152 The State and Islamic proselytization .............................................................160 Transnational support for Da‘wa .....................................................................165 Igbo Muslims and Da‘wa ...................................................................................166

5. INTERROGATING CONVERSIONS TO ISLAM IN IGBOLAND .................................169 Motives for conversions to Islam in Igboland ................................................169 Women and conversion .....................................................................................183 Conversion of children to Islam .......................................................................186 Other factors contributing to conversions in Igboland ................................191

6. “IT IS MY FAITH, IT BELONGS TO ME:” RESPONSES TO CONVERSIONS TO ISLAM ............................................................196 Induction into Islam ............................................................................................196 The benefits of conversion ................................................................................206 Responses to conversions to Islam ...................................................................211 Reactions to conversions from outside Igboland ...........................................222

7. MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS: THE CHALLENGES OF COEXISTENCE IN A MIXED RELIGIOUS SOCIETY ............225 Juggling for a niche in the community ...........................................................225 “Multiple people, multiple ignorance:” Shari‘a implementation in Nigeria ..............................................................238 Issues at the core of the shari‘a dispute ..........................................................244 Death of Igbo Muslims in the riots ..................................................................248 Further insurrection and the progress of Islam in Igboland ........................254 Suggestions for lasting peace in Nigeria .........................................................255

CONCLUSION .................................................................................................................260 ANNEX ...........................................................................................................................264 INDEX .............................................................................................................................279 8

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Responses to this study were very supportive. Very many people were willing to share the story of their conversion to Islam and also to provide other relevant information contained in this work. I thank all my interviewees who allowed their recollections to be reflected in these pages. For those who wished to remain anonymous, I am equally grateful for their testimonies, for the warmth of their reception and their remarkable patience in answering my queries. I also thank all my research assistants – Calista, Kelechi, Nnennaya, and Obinna – and some of my students in the Department of History and International Studies, University of Nigeria, who contributed to the fieldwork by selectively interviewing contacts in various towns or informing me of such individuals. Our efforts together ensured a reasonably wide coverage of Igboland and Eastern Nigeria that this study warranted but more importantly the enthusiasm of my research team was of considerable encouragement to me. Worth mentioning, too, is the support of my University administration in approving the long research leave that was devoted to this study. I acknowledge the huge financial contributions of the following: Prof. C. N. Uchendu, my husband, who sponsored the preliminary stages of the fieldwork in 2003, and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), for its Advanced Research Fellowship Award that financed the field research from 2005 to 2006. The Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung (AvH) sponsored my twenty-eight months stay in Berlin, from June 2006 to September 2008, most of which were spent at Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) where this work was written, and an additional one year of research in the Niger Delta region from October 2008 to September 2009. It further made a generous printing allowance for this project. To Jane Saidi, Prof. Dr. Ulrike Freitag, Dr. Marloes Janson, Dr. Chanfi Ahmed, and Dr. Hassan Mwakamiko, my thanks for their warm friendship all through my Berlin days and their useful remarks on various drafts of this book. Katharina Zöller was indispensable to this project, producing and reproducing all the illustrations in addition to other assistance rendered. I also benefitted from the comments of Ishaq Al-Sulaimani for which I express my thanks. My children provided necessary and pleasant distractions that were part of the memorable experience of my Berlin days. I acknowledge other contributions by persons too numerous to mention toward the success of this project. I am however responsible for flaws and errors of judgment wherever they occur in this book. 9

MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig. 1: Fig. 2: Fig. 3: Fig. 4: Fig. 5: Fig. 6: Fig. 7: Fig. 8: Fig. 9: Fig. 10: Fig. 11: Fig. 12: Fig. 13: Fig. 14: Fig. 15: Fig. 16: Fig. 17: Fig. 18: Fig. 19: Fig. 20: Fig. 21: Fig. 22:

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Southern Nigeria Protectorate and its three provinces, 1916..........................20 Igboland, east and west of the Niger River, and their neighbors..................22 Nigeria’s tripartite units with major linguistic groups....................................40 Hausa trade routes in the “pre-nineteenth” and “nineteenth” centuries......43 Eastern Nigeria showing the five main ethnic groups....................................45 Map of Igboland, east and west of River Niger, and their neighbors...........46 Elephant hunting sites in Eastern Nigeria.........................................................56 Southern Nigeria showing the provinces in Eastern region by 1925 ...........60 Strangers’ Settlements in Eastern Nigeria between 1891 and 1920 ..............63 Old Nsukka Division ............................................................................................74 Shelton’s illustration of trade routes connecting Nsukka with her neighbors ................................................................................................76 Nsukka Local Government Area, 1986...............................................................81 Strangers’ settlements and their economic engagements................................99 Migration from Sokoto to Eastern Nigeria, 1954............................................104 Ebonyi State showing Enohia in Afikpo North Local Government Area .108 Leaders of the Lokpanta cattle market.............................................................140 A section of the cattle market............................................................................141 A young female convert, Sarah Dike................................................................155 Igbo converts learning to do ablution...............................................................158 The turbaning of Mr. Orji Uzor Kalu, former governor of Abia State........164 Nigeria’s population distribution.......................................................................239 Major riots with religious coloration, 2000–2006, and 2008....................258-59

PREFACE

Writing on religious conversions 1

Rambo’s Understanding Religious Conversions more than any other work affirmed my determination to see the conversion to Islam of the Igbo of Eastern (or Southeast) Nigeria from the perspective of the converts. Ambivalence best describes Igbo reaction to Islam right until the present, reasons of which are located in historical realities most especially the frictions that surrounded initial contacts between some Igbo communities and early Muslim migrants from Northern Nigeria to Igboland, and also in the circumstances leading up to the Nigeria-Biafra war (the Nigerian civil war) of 1967 to 1970. The war deepened the post independence divide between the Igbo and Hausa ethnic group. The situation deteriorated in the face of the emerging reputation of Islam as a religion aspiring to world domination. It was little wonder that the civil war was believed by majority of Eastern Nigerians to be an attempt by the Muslim Hausa ethnic group to enthrone Islam in that region of Nigeria in pursuance of 2 its agenda of global ascendancy. The post-war political and economic marginalization of the Igbo in response to their attempted secession from Nigeria from 1967 to 1970 and recourse to arms in defense of their independence did not 3 ameliorate Igbo hostility to Islam but rather had the opposite effect. Other reasons for which the Igbo ethnic group regarded Islam as an unacceptable creed during its earliest appearance in the homeland would appear to come second to the multilevel repercussion of the civil war. At the early stages of my engagement with this research on the emergence of Islam in Igboland I went through several intellectual cross-examinations. I was intrigued by what possibly attracted some Igbo to the religion of a supposedly rival ethnic group long criminalized as enemies of the Igbo ethnic nation. Becoming impassive was the solution to potential ethnic bias. This resolve 1

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L. Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993); and “Anthropology and the Study of Conversion,” The Anthropology of Religious Conversion (eds.), Andrew Buckser and Stephen Glazier (New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2003), 211-222. See text of the 1969 Ahiara Declaration of the defunct Republic of Biafra. http://www.biafraland.com/Ahiara_declaration_1969.htm Paul Obi-Ani, Post-Civil War Social and Economic Reconstruction of Igboland, 19701983 (Enugu: Milkon Press, 1998); Onwuka Njoku, “A Synoptic Overview,” in Toyin Falola (ed.), Igbo History and Society: The Essays of Adiele Afigbo (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2005), 37. 11

was fostered by the fact that multi-religiousness is an ingredient of globalization. Any attempt to rid Eastern Nigeria of Islam, or ban the Igbo from converting to Islam, on any scale whatsoever, will indeed be difficult to achieve. This is in spite of the connection made between Islam and violent behavior since 4 early colonial times, both within Nigeria and internationally. Adopting this outlook allowed me some degree of detachment in discussing my subjects, which was liberating. But, ultimately, the sense of relief derived from reading Rambo was wonderful. Some of Rambo’s findings ring true with my discoveries on conversions of the Igbo to Islam. More importantly, it felt good to read how affirmative Rambo was of conversions generally irrespective of the religious community to which the conversion was directed. An important benefit derived from reading Rambo is realizing my personal status as a convert, too; a situation many people “born” into specific religions take for granted. Several Igbo-born Muslims during interviews distinguished themselves from other Igbo Muslims with the parameter of “being an original Muslim,” contrasting it with “being a convert.” The latter was used in reference to persons not born by Muslim parents. Some spoke of their religious identity in a manner clearly suggesting a superior placement vis-à-vis the converted. An example is provided by the response of a male interviewee to the question “Are you Muslim?” The response promptly given was: “Yes. I am a Muslim, born and 5 brought up and not converted.” But natural members, out of a taken-for-granted familiarity with their religious rituals, might not experience or value the appeal and depth of religious practice in the manner that a convert would. This book tells the story of Igbo Muslims, born and converted. The historical background to the appearance of Islam in Eastern Nigeria and eventually in Igbo territory is provided in chapters 1 through 4. The remaining chapters concentrate on the multi-level motives for conversion, address the contestations over conversions, and give attention to developments originating from the emergence of Islam in the study area. The book is structured to fully incorporate conversion narratives, processes, and experiences of both men and women thus giving voice to both genders from which we gain an understanding into what conversion signifies for each group.

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See various issues of the Foreign Field of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, Volumes 1XXVI (MMSL X O 4), Methodist Archive, London. Abdullahi Chukwudi, b. 1966, interview, Oguta, February 2006.

The Research process A rich store of oral records is available for any scholar interested in investigating religious conversions in Igboland not least the current fascination with Islam. However, Igbo Muslims have not considered documenting their path into Islam. To what extent this derives from the oral quality of the Igbo society is unclear. One would naturally expect Sheikh Ibrahim Nwagui who led the group conversion in Enohia with his apparently more than average education in Western and Arabic education to have left behind some records on Islam in Enohia in particular or in those other parts of Igboland— Nsukka Division and Owerri—that were already touched by Islam before his demise in 1975. Whatever records Nwagui kept have not been made public. Dauda Ojobe, a freelance writer, who converted to Islam in 1971 reported not writing on Islam because he had little knowledge of Arabic; but he also neither wrote in Igbo nor 6 in English. Deficiency in Arabic was presented as the challenge that curbed his employing his professional skills in documenting a life experience. In a way this brings to the fore possibilities that religious change embeds a diverse range of challenges for converts. The absence of written accounts on the outcome of the contacts between the Igbo and migrants from Islamized parts of Northern Nigeria, chiefly the Nupe and the Hausa, was a burden on this study. Therefore, this reconstruction of an aspect of Igbo as well as Nigerian history depended largely on oral sources alongside entries in archives made by colonial officials on Northern Nigerian migrants to Eastern Nigeria, and, the records of traders and early missionaries to Eastern and North Central Nigeria. Personal observations featured as well. In addition to the above, Simon Ottenberg’s article on the group conversion of a section of the village of Enohia in 1958, Doi’s chapter on Nsukka Muslims in 1984, and Anthony’s report on Igbo Muslims in Kano city in 2002 were useful in piecing together various pieces of the puzzle and facilitating better understanding of the story of Islam in Igboland from its earliest indication in the area. It is expected that other scholars will build on the foundation laid by this study and expand general knowledge of the phenomenon of Islam both in Igboland and Eastern Nigeria, which remains at present an unexplored territory as far as the emergence of Islam is concerned. A qualitative methodology was adopted for this study. Various research activities were employed. Preliminary interviews began in February 2003. It was driven by the need for data to expand the contents of the course “Islamic 6

Dauda Ojobe, b. 1928, interview, Amufie, May 2003. 13

Revolutions in West Africa” whose terminal date in the nineteenth century meant the exclusion of Southern Nigeria from the course content. The aim was to incorporate Southern Nigeria into the course content and extend the time frame to the twentieth century. The preliminary investigation drew attention to the untold story of Islam in Igboland consequently leading to six years engagement with this project. It answers skeptics denying the presence of Islam in Igboland in spite of the evident existence of Igbo Muslims and counters feelings widely current within Nigeria that being Igbo is tantamount to being nonMuslim. If that was the case a century ago, recent developments suggest otherwise. Field research for the study was carried out in Nigeria, with interviews held in the northern, western, and eastern parts of the country between February 2003 and May 2006 and again from 2008 until 2010. In between interview seasons, archival investigations were carried out in Nigeria’s three national archives located at Enugu, Ibadan, and Kaduna; and also in London in 2008. The study population consisted of Igbo Muslims in Nigeria. Muslims of all walks of life and non-Muslims of Igbo and other ethnic groups were interviewed for this study. Over 250 persons collaborated in this study. Majority was directly interviewed in English, Igbo, a combination of both, and in Pidgin English. These interviews were scheduled at the time most convenient to the interviewees whose ages ranged from thirteen years to ninety-five years. Hausa interviewees, with the exception of a few, were also educated. Some had post secondary school certificates. All interviewees fall within two broad categories: one half is drawn from different professional groups, and the other half comprises local elites, cattle moguls, the gainfully self-employed, undergraduates, and much younger students. Nearly all interviews were taped except on the few occasions that interviewees preferred to have their accounts written instead. During the process of transcription, interviewees became the experts that were relied on to negotiate around the occasional confusion posed by textual differences arising from variations of the Igbo dialect. Those consulted confirmed that their vernacular renditions were represented as accurately as possible in the English notation. A comprehensive list of all interviewees appears in the bibliography but for reasons of confidentiality some personal data may be withheld.

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INTRODUCTION

“All history begins with the necessary and inescapable observation of change around us. Writing the history of anything involves finding out 7 the nature, extent and pace of that change and trying to explain it.”

The Overview The global expansion of Islam is currently a publicly debated phenomenon. There is no other time more appropriate than now to engage with this paradigm with respect to Southeast Nigeria, also popular as Eastern Nigeria, an area cut off from Islamic influences until recently. This book is the outcome of a historical investigation into the emergence of Islam in the Igbo territory of Eastern Nigeria. The Igbo are one of three major ethnic groups in Nigeria. Igbo8 land encompasses three-quarters of the entire Eastern region of Nigeria. It is currently divided into five states. Eastern Nigeria and Igboland in particular 9 have been famous as “the heartland of Christianity in Nigeria.” Igboland is be10 lieved by scholars to be one of the homogenous Christian regions in Africa. In considering the expansion of Islam into this territory, this book attempts to answer two fundamental questions that can be simply stated as “How” and “Why.” The following pages recounts how Islam was introduced in Igboland and why it was possible for the religion to find a foothold in an environment that was visibly anti-Islam right up to, all through, and after, the period of the Nigeria-Biafra war or the Nigerian civil war of 1967 to 1970. As shown in chapter 3, the propaganda by the government of the defunct Republic of Biafra had situated the Nigeria-Biafra conflict that led to the secession of Biafra from the Nigerian federation within a religious matrix and projected the Biafran 11 struggle—more appropriately the Igbo struggle —as partly a rejection of Islam7 8 9 10 11

John Edwards, “What is African History,” in John Edwards, ed., Writing African History (Rochester, New York: University of Rochester Press, 2006), 25. C. K. Meek, Law and Authority in a Nigerian Tribe: A Study in Indirect Rule (London: Oxford University Press, 1937), 1. I. R. A. Ozigbo, A History of Igboland in the twentieth Century (Enugu: Snaap Press, 1999), 5. Columba Nnorom, “Islam in Igboland: Lessons in History,” paper presented at the Conference on Igbo Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, April 1-2 2003. When Eastern Region (Eastern Nigeria) seceded from the Nigerian federation as Biafra it comprised all the ethnic groups found therein. There was strong support for the 15

ic-Arab expansionism. Notwithstanding, one peculiarity of the spread of Islam in Igboland is its largely unplanned nature, which contrasts with the jihads or reform movements linked to Islamic conquests in parts of Hausaland and Yorubaland, Northern and Western (or Southwestern) Nigeria respectively, and also in other parts of West Africa until the nineteenth century. The exact time that the Igbo ethnic community north of Efikland (the present Cross River state) became aware of Islam as a religious faith is unknown although Muslim migrants from Northern Nigeria identified as “Muhammadans” by early Christian missionaries or “Mohammedans” by British colonial administrators had been in Eastern Nigeria in the Efik territory since the turn of the twentieth century. The earliest reference to Hausa presence in Eastern Nigeria dates to around 1890. Hugh Goldie and Mr. Dean both of the Primitive Methodist Missionary Society in Calabar, an important Efik town, made this observation: A military station established at Ediba, a town beyond Ungwana, where a small detachment of Hausa soldiers under an English officer was stationed, greatly promoted the pacification of the river. (Later, he added) The Hausa soldiers brought a new religion, Mohammedanism, before the eyes of the people, and it was not long before Mohammedan traders from the Niger swarmed into Duke Town, and even up the river. The erection of a mosque has given a concrete form to the new influence. The strangeness of dress and habits of these newcomers, as well as the regular attention to their devotions, strangely impressed the natives, and they soon began to look upon them with a vague fear, which may 12 in time become a great impulse to imitation. In 1896 Major Galway and Mr. A. B. Harcourt confirmed the presence at Elele

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Biafran cause amidst very clear objections. The Nigerian Head of State quickly split Eastern region into three states in 1967 primarily to break the support of the non-Igbo groups for the Biafran cause. Although this move barely affected the already constituted Biafran leadership that drew members from the other groups, it was very obvious that the non-Igbo preferred their disassociation from Biafra. There was allegations all through the civil war regarding the support of these other groups for the Nigerian government and reprisals from Biafra. By the time the Ahiara Declaration was announced, it was already clear that in actuality Biafra was an Igbo affair and non-Igbo support from within the old Eastern region was very weak. Egodi Uchendu, “Recollections of childhood experiences during the Nigerian Civil War,” Africa 77 (3) 2007, 394-418. Hugh Goldie, Calabar and its Mission (Edinburgh: Oliphant Anderson and Ferrier, 1901), 352 and 354.

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of a team of elephant hunters from Kano. Oral testimony of this event indicate that the elephant hunters had moved from Calabar to Elele, some kilomet14 ers away from where the city of Port Harcourt was later founded. Calabar stands out in the history of Eastern Nigeria as a major international entréport, drawing as well traders from the hinterland chiefly from Igboland to its factories in their quest for trade with European merchants. Although Goldie’s remarks lacked the necessary details that would enable a researcher piece more carefully the impact of these migrants on the indigenous peoples or the nature of their relationship with their hosts, they were nonetheless useful as one of the earliest observations from within Eastern Nigeria that confirmed the presence of Muslim migrants in the region; identifying also the possibility of the adoption of another foreign religion by the indigenous people. Excluding Muslim soldiers of the newly constituted colonial army and a few accompanying Muslim traders, the first recognized and well-known Muslim migrant from Northern Nigeria to Eastern Nigeria was Diko, a Hausa and an elephant hunter, who settled in 1891 at Elele a few kilometers from Port Harcourt. Diko attracted few other settlers who by 1935 had nearly all returned 15 to Hausaland. There is proof also of another migrant, Ibrahim Aduku, who came from Nupe to Enugu Ezike in northern Igboland around 1909. Ibrahim Aduku came to trade horses and would subsequently become adopted as a full citizen in one of the thirty-three villages of Enugu Ezike. It would appear that Islam was right up to this time and for some time afterwards ignored by the Igbo and the rest of the peoples of Eastern Nigeria in spite of the occasional commercial dealings when and where necessary between the indigenous populations of Eastern Nigeria and the Muslim traders or migrants in their midst. The dearth of data on this interregional interaction in the accounts of historians and other scholars who chronicled various aspects of the history of the Igbo and of Eastern Nigeria is suggestive of the indifference 16 to Islam in this region and in Igboland in particular. Almost no mention was 13 14 15 16

Abdulrazaq Kilani, Minaret in the Delta: Islam in Port Harcourt and its Environs 1896-2007 (Lagos: Global Dawah Communications, 2008), 42-43. Alhaji Mairiga Diko, b. 1946, grandson of Diko the first migrant hunter to settle in Elele, interview in Elele, June 2009. “Status of Hausa Chiefs,” File: AHODIST 14/1/436, National Archives Enugu, p.6 See, for example, Toyin Falola, ed., Igbo History and Society: The Essays of Adiele Afigbo (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2005); Ozigbo, A History of Igboland in the 20th Century (Enugu: Snaap Press, 1999), Onwuka Njoku, Ohafia: A Heroic Igbo Society (Okigwe: Whytem Prints, 2000), and Okwudiba Nnoli, Ethnic Politics in Nigeria (Enugu, Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1978). 17

made concerning the presence of Muslims and the practice of Islam in Igboland until Simon Ottenberg published in 1971 the article “A Muslim Igbo Village.” This was followed more than a decade later by Abdurrahman Doi’s chapter “Is17 lam in Igboland” that was published in 1984. The silence on Islam and Muslims in Igboland and in Eastern Nigeria is replicated in literary works that issued from the region prior to and after Nigeria’s independence in 1960. One is left to ponder on how unimportant Muslims or their beliefs were to the indigenous peoples of Eastern Nigeria for over half a century after their presence was identified in the region that no mention was 18 made of the religion and its mediators for many decades. Since literary works are windows revealing the thinking patterns of a given society at different points of focus, a logical deduction from this silence, and one corroborated by colonial records and oral data, would be that Muslim migrants found in Igboland and in other parts of Eastern Nigeria before 1960 made little impact on the community to warrant some recognition in documented works from this region and in their oral traditions. In part, this denied them academic consideration and literary engagement. Indeed it is an oversight of sorts that there was no earlier attempt to acknowledge Muslim migrants to those parts of Eastern Nigeria where they first came to, and to document the economic and social implications of their stay, before the reports of Ottenberg (1971) and Doi (1984). Such documentation would have yielded diverse materials that would have formed the basis from which to assess and report on the varied nature of their influence and of Islam both on Igboland and Eastern Nigeria prior to and after the civil war. How much easier it would have been to assess the ramifications of their presence on the five ethnic groups in Eastern Nigeria at this stage. This book attempts to fill this historical void. It deals with the introduction of Islam in Igboland using individual accounts of conversions. Its focus is on persons who converted to Islam, their motivations, the processes and experi17 18

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Simon Ottenberg, “A Moslem Igbo Village,” Cahiers D’Etudes Africaines, Vol. XI (42) 1971, 231-259. Abdurrahman Doi, Islam in Nigeria (Zaria, Gaskiya Press, 1984). For instance, the famous literary author from this region and an Igbo, Chinua Achebe, published his epic novel Things Fall Apart in 1958 in which he devoted considerable attention to the social upheavals caused by Christianity in conjunction with colonial rule. Achebe neither mentioned nor hinted in this novel, albeit ever so slightly, the presence of Muslims or their religion in Igboland yet Things Fall Apart was published the year Islam witnessed its first major breakthrough in Igboland through the group conversion to Islam of a section of the village of Enohia in Abakaliki Division. Achebe also neither mentioned Muslims nor Islam in his second novel Arrow of God (1964) where, again, he explored the intersections of Igbo custom and European Christianity.

ences of conversion, and the outcomes of their actions for themselves, their communities, and for the country. Persons whose narratives featured in this study were once Christians or members of the Igbo indigenous religion. The changing patterns of conversions to Islam in Igboland reflect on Igbo, as well as Nigeria’s, religious, cultural, and political sensibilities. This piece of social history strives to put an end to the long silence about a section of Igbo society— Igbo Muslims—who on account of their religious change and new religious identity were regarded as marginal members of the Igbo society by the majority. Their existence is frequently denied, sometimes ignored, and occasionally disdained by the wider society. In documenting this aspect of Igbo, Eastern Nigeria, and Nigerian history, this book exposes the problems of integrating a marginal category within the mainstream of society. For Igboland that mainstream is roughly composed of Christians and members of the Igbo indigenous religion; and for the Nigerian society, it is composed of members of existing religious groups but chiefly Christians and Muslims. Hence we see the challenges of conversion from one major religion to the other. The account of the emergence of Islam in Igboland is taken simultaneously with the examination of the social reconfigurations that took place in Igboland and in Nigeria deriving from this development. In this respect this book chronicles social change in postindependence Nigeria and builds on the rationale that mass conversions are responsible sooner or later for social and other changes all of which make their occurrence relevant to surviving generations and worthy of scholarly attention. One outcome of this study is the information it provides on the nature, depth, and success of the advance of Islam in recent times using as a site for discussion the Igbo society where long-held frictions had existed with the Muslim Hausa ethnic community whose members consider themselves original worshippers of Allah in West Africa. The book further shows how such an advance both resembles and contrasts with what occurred in other places and in different centuries. The scope of the study stretches from the late nineteenth century until 2009.

Sketching the Landscape A wealth of anthropological and historical studies on the Igbo, Efik, Ibibio, Ekoi, and Ijaw—groups that inhabited Eastern Nigeria since pre-colonial times —exist from which the study landscape can be sketched. The West Coast of Africa was unveiled to the world in the late fifteenth century by Portuguese sailors but it was not until 1784, three centuries later, that that part of the con19

tinent in which Calabar is situated was explored along its coastline. Commerce was soon attracted to the coast and, as this increased, a line of settlements or 19 forts was planted along the seaboard. This part of the West African coastline, 20 which jutted into the Bight of Biafra was famous from the sixteenth to the early nineteenth century on account of the slave trade; at the end of which, in 1885, an Oil Rivers Protectorate, later Niger Coast Protectorate, was established incorporating Calabar, areas close to the Atlantic, and the southern fringes of Igboland.

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Fig. 1: Southern Nigeria Protectorate and its three provinces, 1916

In 1900 the territory now known as Nigeria was administered as two independent British protectorates: Northern, and Southern, Nigeria Protectorates. 19 20 21

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Goldie, Calabar and its Mission, 9. The defunct Republic of Biafra, encompassing all of Eastern Nigeria, derived its name from this Bight. All maps and illustrations are courtesy of this author unless otherwise stated. By this date, colonial rulers were indifferent to ethnic and cultural differences in the delimitation of administrative boundaries. Hence, the Eastern Province included some Igbo communities with the Efik, Ibibio, Ijo, and Ogoja; and the Central Province held the Edo, Itsekiri, Urhobo, some Idoma, the rest of Igboland, the Ishan, and some Yoruba.

Eastern Nigeria, the area of study was part of Southern Nigeria Protectorate and encompassed the old Oil Rivers Protectorate, its hinterland, and more. Southern Protectorate had three sections: the Western, Central, and Eastern Provinces with Eastern Nigeria encompassing all of the Eastern Province and also part of the Central Province. It was with the amalgamation of the Southern and the Northern Nigeria Protectorates in 1914 that Eastern Nigeria came into use as the official designation for the area lying south of the River Benue and east of the River Niger; stretching southwards into the Bight of Biafra and the Atlantic Ocean. It became the official name for the area inhabited by the Igbo, Ibibio, Efik, Ekoi, Ijaw and few other smaller ethnic groups. The Igbo retains a long held status as the major and dominant group in this part of Nigeria. In addition to its vast territory, it has extensive groups in the old Central (or Warri) province, west of the Niger and therefore in Southwest Nigeria. These Igbo communities were once known as the West Niger Igbo but presently as Anioma. For simplicity of understanding, the Igbo homeland in Nigeria sits astride the River Niger. On the eastern side, as mentioned, is the original homeland from where the forebears of Anioma migrated westwards 22 many centuries ago to occupy territories west of the Niger River. In 1998 the Igbo homeland east of the Niger would become southeast geopolitical zone while the remaining four ethnic groups of Eastern Nigeria, along with Delta State where Anioma is currently located, would become the south-south geopolitical zone. All through this book Eastern Nigeria (or Southeast Nigeria) is used to refer to the territory given that designation in 1914, which was home to the Igbo—east of the River Niger, the Ibibio, Efik, Ekoi, and Ijaw. The main focus of the study, however, is with the Igbo territory of Eastern Nigeria split 23 into the following five states; Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo states. Nevertheless, references are made to other ethnic communities of the Eastern region where and when necessary to facilitate our understanding of the jour24 ney of Islam into Eastern Nigeria and eventually into Igboland. 22 23

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Don Ohadike, Anioma: A Social History of the Western Igbo People (Athens: Ohio University Press), 15. The restructuring of Nigeria into six geo-political zones in 1999 was designed to address lingering administrative and political irregularities in the country following the unequal and long disputed colonial regional structure that defined Nigerian politics for many decades. Under the current geo-political zone structure, Igbo communities of Rivers State and Anioma in Delta State both located in the new South-south geopolitical zone are excluded from this discussion. Unless where necessary and otherwise stated, Anioma, the west Niger Igbo territory, lies outside the scope of this book. 21

Fig. 2: Igboland, east and west of the Niger River, and their neighbors The Igbo homeland in Eastern Nigeria is enclosed within an imaginary line running outside of the western boundary of the River Niger; Enugu Ezike in northern Igboland; Abakaliki, Afikpo, and Arochukwu on the eastern end; and Port Harcourt in the south. Towns located within this periphery are united in their acceptance of Igbo as their ethnic identity and their use of the Igbo language albeit with certain dialectical variations. The one exception is the Ikwerre of Rivers state who, prior to the outbreak of the Nigerian civil war in 1967, spoke the Igbo dialect common in southern Igboland, identified them22

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selves as Igbo, and were identified by others as Igbo; but had since the end of the civil war assumed a new identity as “the Ikwerre.” Outside Eastern Nigeria to the north of Igboland is found the Igala, Idoma, and Tiv of North Central Nigeria (previously the Middle Belt) and westwards is 26 the Anioma. Meek describes the Igbo ethnic group as “one of the largest in Africa, with an exceptionally difficult language.” He went on to report that with their population of four million in 1929 “they would outnumber all other Nigerian [ethnic groups], not excluding the Hausa who are generally regarded as the most numerous and most important [ethnic group] in West Africa, if not 27 in the whole of Africa.” The most characteristic feature of the Igbo is the almost complete absence of any higher political or social unit above the commune or small group of contiguous villages, whose customs and cults are identical, who prior to colonial domination took common action against an external enemy, and whose sense of solidarity is so strong that they regard them28 selves as descendants of a common ancestor. The Igbo are not alone in their lack of higher political units as understood by certain foreign scholars employing western yardsticks in analyzing African cultural groups. Rather, the lack of higher political units is a feature of nearly all the ethnic groups in Eastern Nigeria. Harry Johnson who observed similarities in the Igbo and Efik languages suggested that the Efik are allied in language to the Igbo and similarly allied to 29 them in origin. Nevertheless, the Efik tradition of origin current in the late nineteenth century claims that they are an extension of the Ibibio—who by 30 1915 consisted of some three-quarters of a million inhabitants —but were expelled from the former after a military defeat sometime in the late seventeenth 25

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28 29 30

“A Report on the History and Organization of the Ikwerri People living in the Elele and Nkarahia Native Court Areas: Ahoada Division.” File: AHODIST 14/1/217 (1931), National Archives, Enugu. The Ikwerre are included in this study for the period of time that their Igbo identity was their acknowledged identity. Further westwards, beyond Anioma, lies the territory of the ancient Kingdom of Benin.

Meek, Law and Authority, v and 1. The exact term used by Meek to describe the Igbo and other ethnic groups was “tribe.” This has been dropped for the more appropriate term “ethnic group.” Ibid., p. 3. Charles Patridge, Cross River Natives (London: Hutchinson and Co., 1905), 33. D. A. Talbot, Woman’s Mysteries of a primitive People: The Ibibios of Southern Nigeria (London: Frank Cass and Co., 1915), 4. Another Efik tradition of origin claims that Efiks are the descendants of a union between an Igbo man and an Ibibio woman. See A. E. Afigbo, The Igbo and their Neighbours (Ibadan: University Press, 1987), 34. 23

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or early eighteenth century. Locating themselves at their present site close to the Atlantic, the Efik shut off groups behind them from communication with European traders to emerge as the dominant local partners of European traders along the Atlantic coast until the Aro of Igboland and the Akunakuna of Ekoi 32 broke that hold. Centuries’ long interaction of the Efiks and the Europeans made the former the earliest of the Eastern Nigeria ethnic communities to be Christianized and the better educated by the turn of the twentieth century. While the Igbo and Ibibio were mainly agricultural groups, with the Igbo also famous for trading, the Efik and Ijaw depended primarily on fishing, and the Ekoi on hunting leaving much of the agricultural work to women. From the reports of Patridge and Talbot the soil in most parts of Eastern Nigeria was fer33 tile up till the turn of the twentieth century. The closeness of the Atlantic Ocean and its many tributaries allowed extensive fishing. The Igbo interacted regularly with the Ekoi, Efik, Ibibio, and Ijaw long before the establishment of colonial domination. Trade provided the chief reason for these interactions in the process of which intermarriages and political alliances were formed among them. The major trade trajectory was southwards through Calabar to the Atlantic Ocean and the trade items were slaves and imported European goods until a new economic era, under the legitimate trade, replaced the obsession with slaves and diversified the goods put forward for sale by the indigenous population. Igbo external dealings revolved within Eastern Nigeria marginalizing ethnic groups found northwards beyond the Benue River until colonialism opened up that corridor early in the twentieth century. Hugh Goldie’s account of the coastal peoples sheds light on the extent of the interactions of the Southeast peoples and their neighbors prior to the colonial subjugation of any part of Nigeria: A Mr. Colthurst, in the decade of 1830, attempted to penetrate the continent from Calabar, but reached no farther than Ikorofiong (Ekrikok), where taking sick, he returned and died at Duke Town. In a communication to the Royal Geographical Society, Mr. Colthurst states that people from Old Calabar traded with the Niger… There is a traffic of no great extent between the Niger region and Calabar, but it is conducted overland, and no connection so far as is known, exists 31 32 33 24

Goldie, Calabar and its Mission, 12. Patridge, Cross River Natives, 74. Patridge, Cross River Natives, 103. Talbot, “The Land of the Ekoi, Southern Nigeria,” The Geographical Journal, 36 (6) 1910, p. 639.

between the two rivers. The late governor, Beecroft, when in charge of a small steamer, the Ethiopa, went up the Cross river till stopped by rapids, at about three hundred miles from the mouth, the farthest distance to which it has yet been navigated, and found it take a sudden turn to the south, so that a conjecture that it might have a communic34 ation with the Benue was disproved. Afigbo advanced reasons for the relatively narrow range of Igbo external contacts before the colonial era. He asserted that the Igbo were first and foremost 35 an agricultural people bound to their land by strong traditions and taboos. He added, that the needs of the Igbo as an agricultural people were limited and easily satisfied from within their locality or those of their immediate neighbors within Eastern Nigeria. The small fraction of the Igbo predisposed to long-distance travel were Arochukwu (Aro) traders and the Nkwere and Awka smiths who were described as “those who had detached themselves partially or completely from the land in order to supply a more generally felt need or the more exotic needs of a narrow elite class who had developed appetites that could no longer be fully or satisfactorily met from the productive resources of their local 36 communities.” In addition, Horton shows that Aro trade with the outside world was towards the Atlantic to the Ibibio, Ekoi, and Ijaw countries. He writes: The Aro, members of a modestly sized village group became more and more deeply involved in the long-distance commerce stimulated by 34 35

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Goldie, Calabar and its Mission, 11. A. E. Afigbo, “The Age of Innocence: The Igbo and their Neighbours in pre-colonial Times.” Ahiajoku Lecture: http://ahiajoku.Igbonet.com/1981/ Afigbo holds that nowhere in the world are farming communities noted for long-range travel. This view enjoys the support of early missionaries reporting on parts of Eastern Nigeria in the periphery of Calabar and the Cross River and also by some scholars of Africa. For instance, Robin Horton, “On the Rationality of Conversion,” Part I, Africa (3) 1975, p. 220. For further confirmation of this view see the Quarterly Reports of the Primitive Methodist Missionary Society Archive Reports since 1879. It seems likely that in previous centuries the menace of the slave trade helped to limit movements outside one’s familiar environment. A. E. Afigbo, ‘The Age of Innocence.” See Also Meek’s remarks about these groups in C. K. Meek, Law and Authority, 18. In The Igbo and their Neighbours (1987), p. 41-2, Afigbo identified the well established and much frequented trade routes linking the Igbo area with non-Igbo areas by 1750 and the key people responsible for operating these routes. They are as follows: In the northern section, the Igala, Jukun, Aro and Awka; in the middle section, the Aro, Awka, and Nkwerre; and in the southern section, the Aro, Nkwerre, and Ijaw. 25

the Atlantic slave dealers, and eventually succeeded in establishing a trading network whose tentacles extended not only through much of Iboland itself but also through parts of the neighbouring Ibibio, Ekoi, 37 and Ijo [Ijaw] countries. More of the adventures of Aro traders is taken up in chapter 1. They, in particular, ventured beyond the north-most reaches of Eastern Nigeria to the homes of the Igala, Idoma, and Tiv situated south of the River Benue. Beyond the territories of the Igala, Idoma, and Tiv, above the Benue River lie, the Hausa and Nupe ethnic groups of Northern Nigeria with whom the Igbo had nearly no contact before the colonial era even though they were also widely traveled. When contact was established, it was fraught with frictions arising from cultural dissimilarities. The earliest known cases of friction revolved around the involvement of the Hausa in the British conquest of Igbo38 land and over fishing. Fishing was not widely indulged in in Igboland. Exceptions were in Onitsha, Ossomari, Oguta, Afikpo, Azumini, and Umuna; communities along the Niger, Imo, and Oguta Rivers to which fishing was confined. Oral traditions from Igboland showed that it was a taboo to fish in many Igbo villages because of the belief that the fish embodied the souls of the people’s ancestors.” Meek reported instances of keen resentment “frequently expressed against itinerant Hausa fishermen who disregard the feelings of the 39 local inhabitants in this matter.” The action of migrant fishermen from Northern Nigeria was identified as religiously motivated. Occurring at a time when Igbo converts to Christianity displayed same insensitivity for local beliefs and totems; it became a sore point in the early stages of the Igbo–Hausa relationship in Igboland.

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Horton, “On the Rationality of Conversion,” Part I, Africa 45 (3) (1975), 228. Meek, Law and Authority, 18. Meek ’s investigation of the social circumstances that led to the women’s war of 1929 brought to the fore inter-ethnic frictions involving migrants from Northern Nigeria to Igboland. Meek, Law and Authority, 18. There is a strong probability that these fishermen may not all be Hausa probably also the Kakanda of Nupe. According to Asaba oral traditions they were the earliest migrants to fish on the banks of the Niger alongside trading in slaves. The Hausa started to settle along the Niger early in the twentieth century. The use of the Hausa language by the Nupe contributed to their being classed as Hausa by their host communities as reported by Meek. See also Mabel Ukagwu, “The Development of Cattle Trade in Imo State with Special Reference to Umuahia-Ibeku up to 1960.” M. A. Dissertation, University of Nigeria (1987), 18.

Religious Diversification From the Efik territory, Christian missions from 1857 extended their activities to Igboland and began to gain converts among the local people. Christianity became the first foreign religion to gain a foothold in Igboland. A century afterwards Igboland had gained the reputation of being one of Africa’s homogenous 40 Christian regions. Ozigbo in the opening of his discourse on twentieth century Igboland notes: “Igboland was to become a heartland of Christianity in Nigeria 41 with a cacophony of churches, diocese, districts, and high ranking ministries.” The process of planting Christianity in Igboland was not without challenges and problems both for the Igbo whom the missionaries desperately wanted to reform and for the missionaries whose goodwill met with determined rebuff in the early stages of their work. Theological battles appeared to have raged for many decades over the need (or absence of it) for the new theology. Christian missions never adequately addressed Igbo scepticism over the primacy of Christianity or the truth of its 42 claim vis-à-vis the Igbo religious belief. Ultimately, the Igbo acquiesced to Christianity not because they were convinced of the better standing of that faith over theirs but rather because they needed an urgent ally to deal with the violent establishment of colonial rule particularly between 1900 and 1910. Their need became more pressing as the many advantages of the missionary enterprise unfolded themselves; namely, trade prospects, new employment oppor43 tunities, and the benefits of western education. Having fought the long battle before eventually accepting the Christian religion that literally took away the cream of its society, and isolating outside that 40

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Nnorom, “Islam in Igboland: Lessons in History.” Ottenberg, who regards Igboland as a land of almost total Christianity, saw parallels between Igbo religious identity and Nigeria’s socio-political variation. He foresaw a situation where Igboland was determined to be Christian just as Northern Nigeria is Islamic. Simon Ottenberg, “Reflections on Igbo Culture and Society,” unpublished manuscript (2006), 9-10. Ozigbo, A History of Igboland in the 20 th Century, 5. An illustration is provided by the encounter of the Primitive Methodist Society and the Bende clan in Igboland. In 1910 the Society had opened a station in Bende District on the telegraph road and built a church that would comfortably sit 200 worshippers. Very optimistic of some fruitful results, the mission was surprised and forced to close the year after because the older population of Bende were unreservedly hostile and suspicious and had told them that “they do not desire [their] presence.” See Primitive Methodist Missionary Society Archive Reports, Box No. 1139, Quarterly Reports, Bende, 1910–1911. Elizabeth Isichei, “Seven Varieties of Ambiguity: Some patterns of Igbo Response to Christian Mission,” Journal of Religion in Africa, Vol. 3 (1970), 211-215. 27

core a minority composed of the older generation, Igboland found itself reluctant to make another comprehensive switch to Islam which projected another conflicting set of doctrines and a different world view. With no prior links to, or influences from, the Sokoto caliphate in Northern Nigeria, the Igbo had little to encourage their conversion to Islam earlier than they did and in the numbers they did quite unlike Muslims in Northern and Western Nigeria who came under pressure in the long years of colonialism to become Christians in order to benefit from Christian missionary education or become the employees of Brit44 ish colonial officials. Earliest attempts at Islamic propagation in Igboland dates to the 1920s with the first evidence of conversion occurring in the 1930s. However, it was not until after the end of the Nigeria-Biafra war in 1970 that Islamic propagation in Igboland peaked. The success of this enterprise, which drew actors from within and outside Nigeria, is now evident. While retaining its profile as Nigeria’s most populous Christian region, Igboland has since the 1980s gradually tilted towards a broader religious diversification that shows Islam as its latest major addition. Before 1970, Islam encountered a strong rebuff in Igboland in attempts to in45 troduce it. Indeed Islam continues to experience this rebuff in Igboland despite its gains. Denials of its existence or of the presence of indigenous Muslims were common in many parts of Igboland during this study. Associating Islam with the Hausa ethnic group was no help to its cause in Igboland. An interviewee summarized Igbo response to Islam thus: “The Igbo are either Christians or tra46 ditionalists and should remain what they are.” In other words either the Igbo indigenous religion or Christianity is appropriate for Igboland and not a third option. Perhaps, this may be modified if the religion in question is anything other than Islam but we do not know this yet.

Igbo–Hausa Relations This study of Islam in Igboland is both a study of the emergence of a religious community and an examination of ethnic relationship between two major 44

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Shobana Shankar, “A fifty-year Muslim conversion to Christianity: Religious ambiguities and colonial boundaries in Northern Nigeria, C. 1906–1963,” Benjamin Soares, ed., Muslim-Christian Encounters in Africa (Leiden: Brill, 2006) 89-91. A similar reaction was recorded in the Kano Chronicles for Kano around the fifteenth century. Patrick Ryan, “In my end is my Beginning,” in Benjamin Soares, ed., MuslimChristian Encounters in Africa, 194. Mr. John Azi, interview, Awgu, September 2003.

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groups in the country, the Igbo and the Hausa. The two major ethnicities and two major religions involved are quite similar to each other and still different from one another. Igbo-Hausa relations have a long and complex history, the early aspects of which are shrouded in mystery due to non-documentation. Initial attempts at a cultural meeting as earlier observed occurred at the turn of the twentieth century, which incidentally was a delicate period in their histories. Their competitions and efforts at cooperation are recounted alongside the progression towards religious connection between the two. Speaking about attempts for a religious connection, the Hausa assumed the leading role and have had some meaningful results. The Igbo identity is hard to define, as the Igbo are a heavily fragmented ethnic group, independent and autonomous, and living in localized communities. Between the time the Igbo established contacts with European merchants and missionaries and the period when colonialism engendered exposure to ethnic groups beyond their immediate neighbors, they lacked a unified identity. Each community, usually governed by elders, was independent. Pan-Igbo identity 48 dates only to the 1940s with the formation of the Igbo (then Ibo) Union. Ohombamu provides the outsider’s view of the Igbo around this time. He writes: Unlike the Yorubas who had the early opportunity of contact with the outside world and consequently of higher education the Ibos were late starters. They were poor, their land barren and over-populated. They lacked the refined culture of the average westerner or mid-westerner but they had the international ‘go’. They were called names but with their determination to succeed they have reached the top. To get there they have had to migrate to every corner of Nigeria, nay, even Africa.

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The Igbo are dominantly found in Nigeria except for considerable Diaspora communities while the Hausa have considerable kith and kin in Niger Republic, The original home of the ancient Hausa people was in Niger Republic where they also constitute over 54% of the population. A major catalyst for the formation of the Igbo Union was the growing inter-ethnic rivalry of the colonial period. The bone of contention was the control of the government and therefore of national resources. Each of the three key ethnic groups – Igbo, Hausa, and Yoruba – was determined to control the Nigerian state at the expense of the others. Okwudiba Nnoli’s in-depth analysis of ethnic rivalry prior to and immediately after Nigeria’s independence sheds some light on the root causes of the broad span of ethnic conflicts in Nigeria so early in its history. 29

To get there they have had to use fair and sometimes foul means 49 which have not always pleased their neighbors. The proclivity for using fair and foul means, depending on which best serves individual interests, is a constantly reiterated trait of the average Igbo. Instances of this peculiarity appear also in reports on conversions of some Igbo to Islam.

Pattern of Religious Expansion in Nigeria A pattern can be identified in Nigeria with respect to religious propagation, expansion, and adherence. Christianity and Islam both thrived best in areas where they came second to the indigenous faiths. Islam which came second to the indigenous system of worship in Northern Nigeria swept through the area, emerged dominant over the indigenous faith, and had since retained that dominance, which Christianity, introduced afterwards, had been unable to dislodge despite commendable gains. In the Yoruba homeland in Western Nigeria, towns that first “encountered” Islam retained their Islamic coloration and, although allowing Christianity a few converts, did not make any wholesale switch to Christianity in much the same way as towns that first encountered Christianity retained their commitment to it and were unwilling, it would appear, to concede more than a temporary foothold to Islam. There is today in Yorubaland an almost equal balance in the population of Muslims and Christians deriving from the almost simultaneously nature of Muslim and Christian proselytization activities in the area. The pattern where the first “universal” religion in a given area retains its dominance appears replicated in Igboland at present. While explaining why Islam has had the edge, so far, in Africa, Horton notes: “In many areas, it was there first. However, in areas where Christianity was first on the scene ... people opted for it as enthusi50 astically as others in areas of prior Islamic presence opted for the latter.”

Conceptual clarification Christianity and Islam share fundamental elements of the basic repertoire of symbols and concepts through which the faith traditions are articulated and expressed—and these elements distinguish both of 49 50 30

Obarogie Ohonbamu, The Psychology of the Nigerian Revolution (Ilfracombe: Arthur H. Stockwell, 1969), 119. Horton, “On the Rationality of Conversion,” Part II, p. 393.

them … from the other major modes of religious faith and experience. These elements include—beyond the basic shared emphasis on one, not many, divinities—the concepts of revelation by the One God, pro51 phethood and scriptures. Inter-religious switches are common occurrences dating many centuries back. They leave in their wake consequences beyond the imagination of the society contemporaneous with their occurrence. The main concept dealt with in this study is conversion, which in Muslim conceptualization is reversion. Conversion is used in this work because of its wide scholarly application. Conversion 52 is understood in different ways by scholars and religious institutions. What is central to conversion is change and this neither needs to be instantaneous nor drastic. The experience of conversion has rather recommended itself to be more or less a process that occurs over time, capable of manifesting different characteristics as against a monolithic experience common to all. A similar thought, I would say, is the burden of Macmullen’s deconstruction of early conversions 53 and converts to Christianity. As a matter of fact Macmullen points to the great probability of converts retaining much of their religious or ideological past even after conversion. The Catholic Church understands religious conversion to imply the adoption of new opinions or beliefs, or a new religious identity. It defines it as change from a state of sin to repentance, from a lax to a more earnest and serious way of life, from unbelief to faith, from heresy to the true faith. It consists not merely in joining a Church or a family of worshippers who meet regularly for religious observances, but in a change of heart and in the acceptance of the doctrines and submission to the laws of the Church established by 54 Jesus Christ. Islam, on the other hand, uses reversion—aslama—for conversion. Muslims’ preference for “reversion” is based on the concept of fitrah that asserts that every soul is born believing. Reversion is symbolized with the recitation of the Shahada, the Muslim confession of faith, in which the new 51

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John Voll, “African Muslims and Christians in world history: The irrelevance of the “Clash of Civilizations,”” in Benjamin Soares, ed., Muslim-Christian Encounters in Africa, 21. Nock, who only allowed the possibility of conversion within Christian tradition, had suggested that it goes with a consciousness that a great change is involved. A. D. Nock, Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933), 7 and 14. Ramsay Macmullen, “Conversion: A Historian’s View,” The Second Century: A Journal of Early Christian Studies 5 (2) 1985/1986, 67-81. The New Catholic Encyclopaedia (Michigan: Thomas Gale, 2002). 31

member states “There is none worthy of worship except God, and Muhammad 55 is His Messenger.” In a very simplified way, therefore, and going by the standpoints of Christianity and Islam, conversion or reversion involves a reorientation of the soul, a turning towards a new belief system and a new pattern of worship. Conversion or reversion pre-supposes the holding by the convert of a prior religious belief, but this may not always be the case as conversion is also possible from “nonbelief” to “belief.” Inter-religious and intra-religious conversions are regular occurrences. In this book, emphasis is on inter-religious conversion from either Christianity or Igbo indigenous religion to Islam. Instances of conversion in Eastern Nigeria do not suggest a strong connection between the experience of conversion and any profound change especially in the light of similarities in Islam and Christianity. Depending on the brand of Christianity—Catholic or Anglican—from which conversion to Islam occurred, conversions were at best a change from one pattern of worship to another that involved a not-too-profound realigning of religious views and practices with the apparent possibility of most converts retaining much of their religious or ideological past well after their conversion. In conversions from Pentecostal Christianity to Islam, the profundity of the change would appear to be more because of the basic tenets of Pentecostalism that privileges total belief in and submission to Jesus Christ, which Islam denies. What appropriately captures the essence of conversion is the process of relinquishing a worldview or philosophy of life for another thereby shifting the basic presuppositions upon which both self and others are 56 understood. Many conversion theories have been peddled in the last hundred years since 57 Starbuck published The Psychology of Religion (1900). The varied nature of 55

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Sheikh Idoko, b. 1958, Chief imam of University of Nigeria, Nsukka, mosque, interview, Nsukka, June 2003. Sheikh Idoko explained this further that all humans are born Muslims and only made members of other religions through the agency of their parents or by other means. See also Mercedes García-Arenal, “Dreams and reason: Autobiographies of converts in religious polemics,” in Mercedes García-Arenal, ed., Islamic Conversions: Religious identities in Mediterranean Islam (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2001), 99 Andrew Buckser and Stephen Glazier, eds., The Anthropology of Religious Conversion (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2003), xi. Literature on theories and models of conversions include: E. D. Starbuck, The Psychology of Religion (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1900), John Lofland and Rodney Stark, “Becoming a World-Saver. A Theory of Conversion to a Deviant Perspective,” American Sociological Review (December 1965), 862-874; Horton, “African Conversion,” Africa 41 (2) (1971), 85-108; Robin Horton, “On the Rationality of Conversion”

the theories and models of conversions developed by scholars of different disciplines using different methodological tools makes it out as a multi-layered and diverse experience that lacks a singular explanation. It is heavily tilted to the Christian perspective and environment and do not always perfectly explain the Muslim experience. In deciding the theoretical formula to explain the varied cases of conversion to Islam among the Igbo of Eastern Nigeria, the Intellectualist theory of Robin Horton that attempts to elucidate the conversion history of African peoples to Islam and Christianity was applied to the conversion nar58 ratives collected in Igboland. As useful as the Intellectualist theory is in understanding the initial conversions to Islam in Igboland—from the 1930s to 1950s when conversions were from the Igbo religion to Islam; it fails to explain without a shadow of doubt the variegated patterns of conversions from the 1960s to the present when conversions occurred mostly from Christianity to Islam but also from the Igbo religion to Islam. The Intellectualist theory throws light on the shift among the Igbo from a cosmological perspective that centred on lesser deities to one that favoured a supreme deity. The starting point in understanding this development is to conceptualize African cosmology as a two-tier structure in which the lower tier, composed of lesser spirits, controlled events and processes in the microcosm of the local community while the upper tier of the supreme being controlled events and processes in the macrocosm. The important premise of the Intellectualist theory rests on the fact that where the way of life is dominated by substistence farming and commerce is poorly developed, the social relations of people of a particular area are likely to be confined by the boundaries of their microcosm. They may be aware of the wider world but as an area that does not directly concern them. And where there is the development of factors making for wider communication (for instance the development of long-distance trade), the social life of those involved will no longer be so strongly confined by the

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Parts I & II, Africa 45 (3 &4) 1975, 219-234 and 373-399; Humphrey Fisher, “Conversion Reconsidered: Some aspects of religious conversions in Black Africa,” Africa 43 (1973), and “The Juggernaut’s Apologia: Conversion to Islam in Black Africa,” Africa 55 (1985); Emefie Ikenga-Metuh, “The Shattered Microcosm: A Critical Survey of Explanations of Conversion in Africa,” in Kirsten Holst Petersen, ed., Religion, Development and African Identity (Uppsala: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1987), 11-27; L. Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993); Andrew Buckser and Stephen Glazier, eds., The Anthropology of Religious Conversion (New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2002). A comprehensive discussion on conversion theories and models is found in Rambo (1993). Horton, “On the Rationality of Conversion Part I” and “On the Rationality of Conversion Part II.” 33

boundaries of their microcosm. Many of their relationships will cut dramatically across these boundaries as less attention is paid to the lesser spirits but 59 more to the supreme being. In otherwords, the weakening of microcosmic boundaries trigger both a more elaborate definition and worship of the supreme being and a more developed cult of this being. Any acceptance of a monotheistic faith will nonetheless be selective and determined by the basic cosmology of the people in question. Increase in communication first involving the crossing of international boundaries and subsequently the crossing of ethnic or local boundaries was the important factor in the dissemination of montheistic beliefs in Nigeria as a whole. Narrowing this down to Eastern Nigeria, it was this traversing of 60 ethnic, instead of racial, boundaries that gave rise to the earliest incidents of conversion to Islam in northern Igboland, involving a shift away from the veneration of lesser deities of the Igbo cosmology to a monotheistic deity; in this case the Muslim Allah. Excluding northern Igboland, the rest of the study area was already significantly Christian by the 1930s after nearly eight decades 61 of missionary enterprise, from 1857 to 1935. How then do we explain the underlying reasons for those conversions that occurred from Christianity to Islam? For this latter development, the Intellectualist theory provides no clear explanation. We however find an answer in Rambo’s hypothesis, which states: “Except in cases of coercion, converts choose a new option on the basis of perceived advantages to themselves.” Rambo expanded further on this in the following manner: “Each person converts when it is to his or her perceived ad62 vantage: satisfaction, benefit, fulfilment, improvement, and/or compulsion.” An examination of converts’ narratives and patterns of conversions to Islam in Igboland from the late 1950s onwards shows indeed that the pull of indi59

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Horton, “On the Rationality of Conversion Part I,” 219-220. It was not in all cases that the breaking of microcosmic boundaries resulted in the privileging of either of the two established monotheistic deity—the Christian God or the Muslim Allah. Among the Aroh of central Igboland, observes Horton, such a shift occurring some three hundred years ago was in favour of the cult of a supreme deity that was unique to the community,Ibiniukpabi. See Horton, “On the Rationality of Conversion Part I,” 228. The break up of the Igbo microcosmic boundaries via the crossing of racial boundaries —involving European traders and missionaries—saw the introduction of Christianity from 1857. The Intellectualist theory answers more appropraitely the shift in much of Igboland to Christianity from the 19th century, which was the result of widened communication nertworks that brought within the Igbo orbit European traders and missionaries through whose mediation Christianity was established in the area. Afigbo, The Igbo and their Neighbours, 85. Lewis Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion (New Haven: Yale, 1993), 42, 140-1.

vidually preconceived advantages was responsible for previous converts to Christianity shifting their spiritual allegiance to Islam. This same sense of perceived advantages was also found at the core of latter conversions from the Igbo religion to Islam and explains why Islam succeeded in finding a foothold in an area that was strongly antagonistic to it. Detailed cases of these conversion stories are examined in chapters 3 to 5.

The Question of numbers: Are Igbo Muslims worth studying? Colonialism set off the religious change in Igboland under investigation in this book. Conversions to Islam were first recorded in the village of Enugu Ezike in the Nsukka Division of northern Igboland, an area where Christianity was late in establishing itself. In 1970 there were about 400 (four hundred) Igbo Muslims 63 in the whole of Igboland. Igbo Muslims were concentrated in the Nsukka and Afikpo Divisions. In the former, they were found at Enugu Ezike, Ibagwa, and Obukpa; and in the latter at Enohia. Few others were found at Owerri and 64 Afikpo town. Enohia, in Afikpo Division, where group conversion to Islam by a quarter of the village occurred in 1958, had by far the largest Igbo Muslim community before and at the end of the Nigeria-Biafra war in 1970. Their numbers were estimated at about 200. Nsukka Division had much fewer indigenous Muslims supposed to number slightly less than a hundred. These villages and towns where conversions to Islam first occurred gained converts from the Igbo religion except Enohia where most converts including the leader were previ65 ously Christian converts. Beginning from 1970 when concerted efforts began to be made both from within and outside Nigeria to propagate Islam in Igboland, instances of conversions peaked with reported increase in the number of Igbo Muslims. The Pakistani scholar, Doi, was the first to publish the statistics of Igbo Muslims using figures collected from Muslim religious leaders in Igboland. He put their 66 number in 1984 at 3450 persons. Doi’s account of Islam in Igboland is widely upheld as reliable by local Muslim leaders none of which queried his estimation 63 64 65 66

This figure is based on inferences by Muslim imams since no statistical record on their numbers could be procured Alhaji Iwuanyanwu, interview, Mbaitoli, January 2006; and, Ottenberg, “A Moslem Igbo Village,” 231-259. Mallam Abubakr, chief imam, interview, Awka, July 2003. See Abdurrahman Doi, Islam in Nigeria, 182. This figure is the result of subtracting the number of non-Igbo Muslims from the total figure of Muslims in Igboland. 35

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of Igbo Muslim population but rather referred me to his publication. Since 1990 the population of Igbo Muslims has remained a matter of conjecture and a guarded secret. Collating demographic data on indigenous Muslims in Igboland became a major challenge encountered in this study. It was difficult deducing with the aid of census data the progression of conversions to Islam among the Igbo before and after 1970 for two major reasons: Firstly, censuses taken during the colonial era were burdened by a lack of consideration and careful representation of religious beliefs not in consonance with the most popular religion in a given region or to the most popular religion among the migrant population. For instance, the preamble to the 1911 Southern Nigeria Census observed as follows: “Excepting in the ports, no attempt was made to schedule the religious 68 beliefs of the natives.” Subsequent censuses in Eastern Nigeria in particular, although recognizing the major religion of the dominant migrant community, provided no details of the minority religion(s) of the ethnic groups in the area. Secondly, the colonial pattern of recording demographic data with respect to religion was inherited by the Nigerian government, which justifies official exclusion of religious details on the grounds of ethnic rivalry and political manipulations engendered thereby. There was as well the reluctance on the part of Muslim religious leaders and organizations in Igboland to divulge their figures for indigenous Muslims. Imams reported not keeping any record of their members or of persons worshipping at their mosques. Typical responses from Muslim religious leaders to questions on the population of Igbo Muslims are reproduced here. In the first a sheikh replies: See the mosque. You can estimate for yourself. You can come on Friday and join us. Fridays are the main services. The Youth Corpers working with us, and others, attend worship on Fridays. The whole house is full. We may be up to 300 but before the election many [non69 Igbo] went home. They were afraid something would happen to them. The mosque in question, situated at the Islamic Centre at Enugu, is one of the major mosques in Igboland. The visit to the mosque was undertaken in May 2003. It was scheduled three hours prior to the Jumat prayers and two hours 67 68 69

36

Alhaji Osuji, Sheikh Idris, and Sheikh Idoko, interviews, Enugu and Nsukka, May and June 2003. “Southern Nigeria Census Report,” File 4179/1912, p. 3. National Archives, Kaduna. Sheikh Idris Al-Hassan, b. 1959, Director and Chief Imam of the Islamic Centre, Enugu, interview at Enugu, May 2003. This interview was held less than a month after the country’s national elections.

after the service. This arrangement allowed a clear observation on Muslims’ most important worship day of activities in the mosque premises leading up to the time of prayer and hours after the prayer. We estimated that close to 200 persons comprising men, women, and children worshipped at the mosque that Friday. They were drawn from different ethnic backgrounds, the obvious ones being Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa. Three other mosques used mostly by the Hausa exist in Enugu. One is located within the premises of the Nigerian army barracks while the other two are found at Owerri Road and the Garki market respectively. In these other mosques artisans, soldiers, traders, and labourers comprising the bulk of the migrants from Hausaland and other parts of Northern Nigeria assemble for worship. Most elite Hausa appears to prefer the mosque in the premises of the Islamic Centre. Visits to different mosques in Igboland showed that Igbo Muslims were outnumbered by non-Igbo Muslims. Muslim interviewees including religious leaders among them generally acknowledged this disproportion. In Nsukka town the following response was given regarding the number of Muslims in the community: In this environment, you may get five or six people in each village who are Muslims. Many come in but in less than five years they leave Islam. I think that when those who bring them in take time to explain to them what the religion is all about they would not be going back as 70 they have done rather they will worship and enjoy it. If nothing else, such a coming and going would cause clear instability in the number of worshippers. The unavailability of official statistics on Igbo Muslims was one reason for reliance on the approximations provided by Muslim interviewees among whom were religious leaders. In 1991 Abdulaziz Onyeama, the most prominent Igbo Muslim and a member of the Nigerian Supreme Islamic Council, announced in an interview that there were some 10,000 Muslims of Igbo origin all over Nigeria, nearly a triple 71 increase on the figure published by Doi seven years earlier. Onyeama’s postulation was regarded more as a bold projection than the reality and one that presupposes a momentous progress for Islam from the land of “almost total Chris72 tianity” as Igboland was construed to be. In 2003, Alhaji Abubakr, a chief imam of non-Igbo origin, took the debate further by proposing a conversion 70 71

Adam Usman, interview, Nsukka, May 2003.

M. Akoshile and I. Umunna, “Igbo Muslims: Their Trials and Triumphs,” Citizen 4 (1993), 10-19. 37

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rate of 1 Muslim for every 1000 Christians. Both estimations are not replicated by this research since there is no evidence to support them. But, should we concede Abubakr’s projection, then we should be considering at present some 16,000 (sixteen thousand) Igbo Muslims from an Igbo population of over sixteen million. Should we study a section of a group considerably outnumbered by the majority? Certainly yes! This issue came up at a preliminary discussion of this work at Humboldt Universität zu Berlin in February 2007. One scholar queried this study on the basis of the number of the Igbo Muslim population. He was alone in expressing the contrary opinion that the number of converts did not justify the bother. The persistent occurrence of conversions to Islam in Igboland in itself justifies scholarly investigation of the change process and its challenges; the dividends to, as well as the consequences on, Igbo society and on inter-ethnic relationships in a multi-ethnic country like Nigeria. The social or political reconfigurations stimulated by religious change could proceed for as long as possible making an early engagement necessary as a foundation for future and more diversified investigations of its overall impacts. This attempt at a comprehensive study of a process that commenced nearly a century ago is by no means premature irrespective of the numbers involved. It goes without saying that in the absence of an inclusive account of the emergence of Islam in Igboland, this book fills an important gap and provides a relevant resource for further studies on this theme. With the ever-present fear of global religious fundamentalism, understanding expressions of faith in local environments should be one paramount concern of scholars.

72

Douglas Anthony, “Islam Does Not Belong to Them: Ethnic and Religious Identities among Male Igbo Converts in Hausaland,” Africa 70 (2000), 1.

73

Alhaji Abubakr, interview cited.

38

CHAPTER 1 EASTERN NIGERIA BEFORE 1920

The history of Islam in Eastern Nigeria (or Southeast Nigeria), and in Igboland in particular, requires an understanding of the mode of transmission and the agents of its spread from its original homeland in Hausaland in Northern Nigeria to its newest outposts in Eastern Nigeria where the Igbo, Efik, Ibibio, Ekoi, and Ijaw ethnic groups are found. This chapter outlines the migratory patterns of the Nupe and Hausa (Northern) and Yoruba (Southwestern) Muslims and therefore of Islam to the Southeast. Included is the examination of the multifarious factors that motivated contacts between persons from the north and southwest with those in Eastern Nigeria; the circumstances surrounding their meetings and the forms of their interactions until an indigenous Muslim population emerged in the Southeast, precisely in Igboland. In this reconstruction, substantial use is made of colonial and other official records, oral data from the author’s fieldwork, and relevant published works.

The journey of Islam towards the Southeast Islam existed in and around the city-state of Kano in Northern Nigeria before the fourteenth century. It took the jihad of Uthman dan Fodio in 1804 for Islam to extend its geographical limits and triggered the creation of a theocracy, which survived for nearly a century before the British colonization of Hausa74 land and other parts of Northern Nigeria in 1900. Islamic values, already in operation in parts of Hausaland and also in the Kanembu (Kanem-Bornu) Empire, were with the jihad reinvigorated and extended to much of Hausaland and beyond, encompassing what in Nigeria is regarded as the far north (i.e. northeast and north-west Nigeria). Considerable non-believing minority ethnic com75 munities referred to as “pagan” found themselves eclipsed by new Islamic 76 towns and provinces but were not compelled to become Islamized. 74 75

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N. Levtzion, “Patterns of Islamization in West Africa,” in N. Levtzion (ed.), Conversion to Islam (New York: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1979), 215. Pagan (or paganism), a highly contested term infused with negative labelling, is used to refer to spirits-and-essences filled belief systems that are based upon direct perception of the forces of nature and usually involves the use of idols, talismans, and taboos for conveying respect for these forces and beings. See, http://www.religioustolerance.org/ paganism.htm The theocracy of the Sokoto Caliphate did not prevent the Islamized Hausa from retai39

Fig. 3: Nigeria’s tripartite units—North, Middle Belt or North Central and South—with major linguistic groups In the space of six decades from the launching of the jihad wars in 1804, Islam was pushed southwards beyond Hausaland into Nupe, Ilorin, Abuja, Nassarawa, Keffi, and Adamawa located on the northern periphery of North Central Nigeria. The establishment by Islamic reformers of the Emirate of Nassarawa in the mid 1850s corresponded with a turn in Fulani power in North Central Nigeria. Two of the important factors, among other setbacks, that undermined further military expansion were the tsetse fly hazard and the collapse of the post 1860 world market for slaves, which meant that coastal supply of 77 firearms was cut off, leading to the eventual decline of Fulani military power.

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ning aspects of their pre-Islamic culture: their folklore, magic, indigenous medicine, drumming, and dance. Mervyn Hiskett, The Course of Islam in Africa (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994), 111. R. G. Armstrong, “The Idoma–Speaking Peoples,” in Daryll Forde (ed.), Peoples of the Niger-Benue Confluence (London: International African Institute, 1955), 97; R. J. Gavin and Wale Oyemakinde, “Economic Development in Nigeria since 1800,” in Obaro Ikime (ed.), Groundwork of Nigerian History (Ibadan: Heinemann, 1980).

Thus, Igalaland, Idomaland and Tivland on the southern fringes of North Central Nigeria were not incorporated into the expanding Islamic empire. With the imposition of British colonial rule in Northern Nigeria from1900 the independent military and political assertiveness of colonized groups were curbed meaning that the Hausa-Fulani commitment to spreading Islam southwards was halted. Although the colonial experiment favored a peaceful spread of Islam as a result of the British policy of imposing Muslim Fulani or Hausa district officers over non-Muslim peoples and of establishing Islamic courts in those areas, the impact of the exposure to Islam of non-Muslim groups in the southern periphery of North Central Nigeria did not occasion the adoption of Islamic religion 78 as it did in Northern Nigeria. The following ethnic groups of North Central Nigeria—the Jukun, Tiv, Mumuye, Birom, Longuda, Kutep, Taroh, Jen, Rukuba 79 —continued to resist Islam well beyond the 1970s. Mahdi Adamu gave a detailed discussion of the role of the Jukun in particular in preventing Hausa Muslim soldiers from overrunning North Central Nigeria prior to the twentieth 80 century. The immense opposition of the Tiv to Islam right up to the present is also proverbial. Indications of this can be found in Tiv folklore and in reports of several studies including those of Laura and Paul Bohannan (1953) and Gilliland (1986). This total rejection of Islam had been part of what it means to be a Tiv. It is a self-awareness that Gilliland describes as “a dynamic that can scar81 cely be equalled in northern Nigeria.” Two of Gilliland’s interview reports on Tiv views of the Hausa and Islam read: It was the colonial administrators who brought the Hausas. …They were looked upon as different, mysterious and secretive. Their writing was strange as well as their habits, but most objectionable was their religion. The Tiv looked upon them as having no real tribe, but as transients—traders, lazy and selfish… Anyone who does salla [prayer] is considered a Hausa man—he is no 78

79 80 81

The British colonial government’s role in fostering the extension of Islam to non-Muslim groups in Northern and North-Central Nigeria is discussed in C. N. Ubah, “Colonial Administration and the spread of Islam in Northern Nigeria,” The Muslim World 81 (2) 1991, 133-148. Also, A. H. M. Kirk Greene, The Principles of Native Administration in Nigeria: Selected Documents 1900–1947 (London: Oxford University Press, 1965). Dean S. Gilliland, African Religion meets Islam: Religious Change in Northern Nigeria (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1986), 30. Mahdi Adamu, The Hausa Factor in West African History (Zaria: Ahmadu Bello University Press, 1978), 25. Gilliland, African Religion meets Islam, 63. 41

longer accepted as a Tiv. Why then would anyone wish to do it (become Muslim)? ... The convert must be rejected for the same reasons that the Hausa man is rejected. They are exclusive. They won’t mix. 82 Our women wouldn’t marry them. The Tiv up till recently have remained proud that their ancestors halted the southwards advance of Islam many decades after the establishment of Muslim 83 emirates in northern and North Central Nigeria. When between 1900 and 1905 British authority was militarily imposed on Hausaland and other interior territories of the Royal Niger Company, the political authority of the Sokoto Caliphate was suspended provoking stiff opposition from the latter. Little did the Fulani leaders and the largely Hausa Muslim community imagine that that “evil wind,” referring to the British military operatives, would in due time provide the easiest opportunity for a successful, nondramatic, and bloodless spread of Islam in the far north, eventually extending to the northern fringes of North Central Nigeria. Meanwhile, acting on the spur of the moment, Sultan Attahiru I of Sokoto emigrated in 1903 to the Egyptian Sudan and onwards to Mecca with a large retinue of Fulani Muslims reportedly 84 numbering about 25,000. The vast majority of Muslims, unable to throw off British yoke, despite their consistent attempts until 1921, submitted to British authority. On the strength of earlier scholarly investigations, the acceptance of colonial rule was part of the strategy of taqiyya that allows Muslims to cooperate with a non-Muslim authority when they have no alternative while reserving the right to re-assert their individual and religious independence when they 85 consider it appropriate to do so. With the success of the British suppression of Northern and parts of North Central Nigeria, the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria was created and organized into the following sixteen administrative provinces: Sokoto, Kano, Katagun, Northern Bornu, Bauchi, Zaria, Adamawa, 86 Yola, Nassarawa, Borgu, Nupe, Muri, Ilorin, Kabba, Bassa, and Kontagora. 82 83 84 85 86

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Ibid. James Gire, personal communication, November 2007. “History of Islamic political propaganda in Nigeria,” File ZARPROF C.7/1927, National Archives, Kaduna, pages 5-9. Hiskett, The Course of Islam in Africa, 114-5. Taqiyya is an Arabic term suggesting “being faithful.” “Population Statistics,” File: KANPROF 3530, National Archives, Kaduna. Subsequent re-organisations found them split into 12 provinces: Sokoto, Zaria, Kano, Katsina, Bauchi, Bornu, Niger, Ilorin, Plateau, Kabba, Benue and Adamawa. Changes, however, continued until the end of the colonial period.

Earliest inter-ethnic contacts One very important consequence of colonial imposition was the opening up of the interior of Nigeria and the linking together of hitherto disparate ethnic communities. This is very marked with regards to contacts between ethnic groups in Eastern Nigeria with those farthest from them located in Northern Nigeria. A very compelling case is between the Igbo, the most populous ethnic group in the Southeast, and the Hausa that occupy same position in the north. The same applies also to the minority groups of the Southeast – Efik, Ibibio, Ijaw, Ekoi, and few others – with the Hausa. The nature of inter-ethnic relationships between Southeast groups and the Hausa stands in contrast with that between some groups in the Southwest and the Hausa who became connected 87 through trade associations predating the eighteenth century. The commercial link between the Yoruba of Southwest Nigeria and the Hausa was strengthened in the nineteenth century when Afonja, the Yoruba warrior ruler from Ilorin, invited the assistance of Muslim reformers in his political quarrel with Oyo, eventually setting in motion events that led to the incorporation of Ilorin within the Sokoto Caliphate.

Fig. 4: Hausa trade routes in the “pre-nineteenth” and “nineteenth” centuries. 87

88

88

See Diagram illustrating “Main Trade Communications of Muslim Africa,” in Hiskett, The Course of Islam in Africa. See also, Adamu, Hausa Factor in West African History, 64-65. This pictographic presentation was adapted from Adamu’s, Hausa Factor in West African History, 64. 43

Prior to the first decade of the twentieth century contacts among persons from Northern Nigeria with those in the Southeast were very few and far between. The reasons for this are found in the following: The absence of any direct trade relations between the Hausa and ethnic groups in the Southeast; the nature of inter-ethnic interactions before the twentieth century, which was defined by the exigencies of the slave trade and its insecurity that curbed interethnic contacts, continuing beyond 1906 when it was officially banned in Ni89 geria by the British; and, the chasm created by the largely non-Muslim ethnic 90 nations of North Central Nigeria. The Kola nut trade that took Muslim Hausa traders all over West Africa incidentally did not bring them into Eastern Niger91 ia. The Kola nut traffic from Northern Nigeria via Sokoto Province and the famous market at Jega passed through Oshogbo, Ibadan, and Ilorin in Yorubaland and onwards to Accra and Kumasi in the Gold Coast. Though in decline, it 92 continued until the 1930s. Eastern Nigeria was not incorporated in the Hausa economic network because the Igbo kola nut – C. acuminatae – was not popular outside the Southeast with the exception of Yorubaland where it was planted in small quantities. Lovejoy’s study shows that C. acuminate “was insignificant in comparison with the far more popular C. nitida—gworo” produced in the Gold Coast and further up to the Volta and traded by Hausa mer93 chants over many centuries. Colonialism radically altered that trajectory of Hausa economic activities and turned some Hausa traders southwards into peripheral Efik and Igbo communities. Further advance into the interior of Igboland would await several decades and the agency of some Igbo. The Igbo, Efik, Ibibio, Ijaw, and Ekoi of Eastern Nigeria were before the twentieth century known for two distinct engagements: agriculture and fishing. Trade was a secondary and elite occupation even also in the Niger Delta, which between 1885 and 1893 was known as the Oil Rivers and regarded as the hub of

89

90 91

92

93 44

Abolition of slavery in Northern Nigeria was effected in 1936: Paul Lovejoy and Jan Hogendorn, Slow death for slavery: The course of abolition in Northern Nigeria, 18971936 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Gavin and Oyemakinde, “Economic Development in Nigeria since 1800,” 495. Adamu, The Hausa Factor in West African History. See diagram between pages 64 and 65; and Paul Lovejoy, Ecology and Ethnography of Muslim Trade in West Africa (New Jersey, Trenton: Africa World Press, 2005), 159. SOKPROF 260, p. 8; National Archives, Kaduna. R. M. Prothero, Migrant Labour from Sokoto Province Northern Nigeria (Kaduna: Government Printer Northern Region of Nigeria, 1958), 18. Lovejoy, Ecology and Ethnography of Muslim Trade, 296.

Fig. 5: Eastern Nigeria showing the five main ethnic groups

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nineteenth century trade between the Southeast peoples and Europeans. Afigbo’s study of the Igbo and their neighbors informs us that the Igbo commonly interacted with the Efik, Ibibio, Ijaw, and Ekoi through intermarriage and trade and in other undertakings long before the British colonization of the 96 region began in 1886. As peasant farmers, traders, and fishermen the needs of the Igbo and their neighbors were limited to the basic requirements for existence, all of which were easily obtainable within their locality. The satisfaction of these ethnic communities with the life styles and patterns that their environment made possible partly explains the very limited character of inter-group relations that existed between them and groups located beyond North Central Nigeria before 1900. 94 95

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The Ekoi and Ijaw are the dominant groups in their locations. In other words, there are few smaller ethnic groups that are not indicated in the map. The Niger Delta radiates southwest in a triangular shape, with its apex located approximately at the old trading town of Aboh, in Anioma, west of the Niger. Through its innumerable meandering tidal creeks, which interlace small rivers like the Orashi, Imo, Aba, and Kwa Ibo, the Niger sluggishly empties itself into the Bight of Biafra. Sylvanus Cookey, King Jaja of the Niger Delta: His Life and Times, 1821–1891 (New York: Nok Publishers, 1974), 11. Adiele Afigbo, “The Age of Innocence: The Igbo and their neighbours in pre-colonial Times.” Ahiajoku Lecture. (Owerri: Ministry of Information, Culture, Youth and Sports, 1981.) 45

Fig. 6: Map of Igboland, east and west of River Niger, and their neighbors Sections of Eastern Nigeria that interacted more with groups located north of the region were Igbo communities situated on the northern fringes of Igboland—the Nsukka Igbo and parts of the Awka–Onitsha periphery; and also the Ekoi of the Cross River area whose immediate northern neighbours were the Igala, Idoma, and Tiv. On the part of the Efik, Ibibio, and Ijaw, similar interactions were southwards to the Bight of Biafra. The Ijaw could reach out to sister communities located westwards in the delta and also to Itshekiri and Edo still west of them. Indeed for Efik, Ibibio, and Ijaw, they required on each turn to traverse Igboland in order to communicate with ethnic communities north and west of Igboland. The Arochukwu (Aro) Igbo, renowned for their long-distance trading in slaves and their famous deity – Ibini Ukpabi or Long juju – along with Nri ritual specialists and Awka and Nkwerre smiths pursued their economic engagements past the boundaries of Igboland into the southern limits of North Central Nigeria but neither up to Nupe nor Hausaland. These Igbo village groups earlier than others disengaged from the land when it became less productive from over-exploitation. Ottenberg says of Aro commercial enterprise in northeast Igboland, precisely in Abakaliki Division of Ogoja Province, which is conterminous with Idoma to its west:

46

There was some trade with the North-East Igbo, but this does not appear to have become important until the latter part of the nineteenth century. Yet, it probably took some time for the Aro to establish themselves in this area, which is pretty much at the limits of their northern 97 influence. Although the Aro operated widely more than any other group from Eastern Nigeria and were clearly visible in Abakaliki in north-east Igboland, in Igumale and Yangedde in southern Idomaland and central Idomaland respectively; Horton’s report on the Aro before the twentieth century reads: “Aro can have had only the most indirect commercial links with Islamized groups to the north. Nor 98 were they in direct contact with European slavers on the coast to the south.” There was no evidence of direct contact before the turn of the twentieth century between ethnic groups in Eastern Nigeria with groups in Northern Nigeria located beyond North Central Nigeria. Nevertheless, perusing accounts on events around 1900, we come across a few possibilities that help with this investigation on the beginning of Islam in Igboland and Eastern Nigeria. Armstrong records that Abakaliki in Igboland and Yangedde in central Idomaland 99 had “big slave markets regularly visited by Nupe and Arochukwu Ibo.” Igbo traders from Nsukka, Onitsha, Ossomari, and Asaba (west of the Niger) traded with the Igala with whom they have had centuries of contact to the point that the Igbo language was used alongside Hausa and English languages for trade in Igala markets. On their part, Igala traders head loaded cotton grown in Ife Dis100 trict north of Ankpa to markets in Nsukka Division. Contacts would probably have existed between Igbo traders who ventured 101 into Igala and Idoma lands with traders from Nupe and also probably with Hausa traders they met at these markets but Gavin and Oyemakinde show that 97

Simon Ottenberg, Farmers and Townspeople in a Changing Nigeria: Abakaliki during Colonial Times (1905-1960) (Ibadan: Spectrum Books, 2005), 28. 98 Robin Horton, “On the Rationality of Conversion” Part I, Africa 45 (3) 1975, 229. 99 R. G. Armstrong, “The Idoma–Speaking Peoples,” 99. 100 R. G. Armstrong, “The Igala,” 79 and 82-83. For references to early contacts between the Igbo and other ethnic communities north of Igboland see: MacGregor Laird and R.A.K. Oldfield, Narrative of an expedition into the interior of Africa by the River Niger, 1832-1833 (London: Richard Bentley, 1857); Laura and Paul Bohannan, The Tiv of Central Nigeria (London: International African Institute, 1953), and Adamu, The Hausa Factor in West African History. 101 The Nupe were the only group in North Central Nigeria “to have been Islamised to any considerable extent,” by the second half of the nineteenth century. Daryll Forde, Peoples of the Niger-Benue Confluence, xiv. 47

these contacts were controlled by the middlemen role of the Igala and Idoma, who in addition denied Hausa and Nupe traders free movement through their territory southwards before the twentieth century. In spite of their efforts, offshoots from Adamawa succeeded before the end of the nineteenth century in moving in a southwesterly direction through what became the Camerouns to the sea in attempts to secure such trade items as slaves and ivory thus leaving the mass of the Tiv, Idoma, Igala, and Igbo peoples untouched by Muslim 102 traders. The thrust from Adamawa partly explains the presence of “Mohammedan” traders in Calabar in 1890 reported by Hugh Goldie of the Primitive 103 Methodist Missionary Society. On the part of the Igbo and their neighbors in Eastern Nigeria, the major economic influence was the growth of foreign commerce on their southern periphery. The Aro exemplified the strength of this southward pull for as Horton observed, they “became more and more deeply involved in long distance commerce stimulated by the Atlantic slave dealers, and eventually succeeded in establishing a trading network whose tentacles extended not only through much of Iboland itself but also through parts of neighbor104 ing Ibibio, Ekoi, and Ijo [Ijaw] countries.” Adamu’s extensive study of Hausa commercial activities in the nineteenth century offers us nothing on the probable trade interactions between the Hausa and the peoples of Eastern Nigeria except to mention a notation from John Lander’s recordings of an Hausa trader he “noticed” in the Igbo kingdom of 105 Aboh, west of the Niger, during his travels with Clapperton in 1830 to 1832. It remains a mystery as to what the Hausa trader was doing in the court of the king of Aboh. Was he captured like Lander was? Unfortunately, before Lander could speak to him and ascertain these details, Lander was taken away. The mystery is all the more puzzling because Hausa commercial enterprise by this date, as mentioned, was directed southwestwards to the Gold Coast and beyond through Yorubaland, completely circumventing Edoland, seat of the old Benin Kingdom, and the territory of the Igbo kingdom of Aboh where the trader was “noticed.” It also circumvented Igboland east of the Niger and the 106 rest of Eastern Nigeria. The likely possibility, therefore, of interaction be102 Gavin and Oyemakinde, “Economic Development in Nigeria since 1800,” 495. 103 Hugh Goldie, Calabar and its Mission (Edinburgh: Oliphant Anderson and Ferrier, 1890), 354. 104 Horton, “On the Rationality of Conversion, Part I,” 228. 105 Adamu, The Hausa Factor, 47. 106 See the pictographic representations of this trade in Adamu, The Hausa Factor, and, Paul Lovejoy, Ecology and Ethnography of Muslim Trade. 48

tween Hausa and Igbo and other groups in Eastern Nigeria before 1900 would have been by indirect mode and occurring in areas where the Hausa maintained trade links as they did in parts of North Central Nigeria east of the confluence of the Niger and Benue Rivers in the territory of the Igala and Idoma where Igbo traders also ventured to for trade. From the angle of the Southeast, very little suggests the existence of in107 ter-ethnic dealings with the Hausa (and Fulani ) before 1900. Perhaps, part of the difficulty in finding traces from Eastern Nigeria of pre-colonial interaction with groups in the far north could be that Eastern Nigeria was largely an oral society. The ethnic groups in the region kept no written records, having the rich resources of their past stored in human memories whose accuracy after many decades and centuries of retelling naturally diminished. Exceptions may 108 be made, with care, of some well-diffused accounts. An indigenous pictographic form of writing called Nsibidi developed at a point in pre-colonial Igboland and became the privilege of an elite class of prominent men composed mostly of Igbo smiths and members of the Ekpe secret society. Its use with time extended into Ekoi, Ibibio, and Efik lands in the Cross River area. Little of this secret script already in use by 1700 survived and much of what survived of Nsibidi lacks an interpreter, the script having been discontinued following the introduction of western education in Eastern Niger109 ia. Being forewarned of the danger of reading too much into silence and thus 107 Macgregor Laird and R. A. K. Oldfield reported the use of “a red pigment prepared from redwood brought from the Eboe (Igbo) country” by Fulani women in Raba, Nupe. The item was the Igbo camwood brought by Igbo traders to Igala and Idoma markets from where they were bought by Nupe traders. R. N. Henderson, The King in Everyman: Evolutionary Trends in Onitsha Ibo Society (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1972), 68-71. This, again, illustrates the indirect nature of the contact between the Igbo and Hausa and Nupe before the twentieth century. 108 There is also no archaeological evidence supporting inter-ethnic contact between these groups before the twentieth century. The excavations by Thurstan Shaw in Igbo-Ukwu, south of Onitsha, in 1959, do not suggest evidence of Hausa culture on Igbo territory, even though the archaeological site “was one relating to great social and spiritual prestige,” and dated to the 9th century A.D. The horse motif found in the Igbo Ukwu bronze was traced to Nupe traders who brought the animal to Ejule (Ejure) and later to Agbaabutaji, and then to Idah. Igala and Idoma traders brought the animal into Igboland before being joined in the twentieth century by Nupe traders. See J. Desmond Clark, Igbo-Ukwu: An Account of Archaeological Discoveries in Eastern Nigeria by Thurstan Shaw, Man, New Series, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Sep., 1971), pp. 493-495. Afigbo, The Igbo and their Neighbours, 61-2. 109 Adiele Afigbo, Ropes of Sand: Studies in Igbo History and Culture (Nsukka: University of Nigeria Press, 1981), 375. Nsibidi was used for a variety of things including warfare 49

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ending up with dangerous conclusions, we may have to look elsewhere for evidence of early inter-ethnic contacts that could have laid the foundation for exchange of religious views among the groups under study during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

On the trail of the Elephant Hunters The Kano Chronicle, Hausa manuscripts dealing with the early history of the Hausa up to the 1890s made no mention of interactions between Hausa and the peoples of Eastern Nigeria either directly or indirectly. None of the scholars who have investigated the commercial activities of the Hausa has made reference to any commercial or other links either from the Kano Chronicle or other journals and documents involving the groups in question. It should not be forgotten that these groups were independent of each other belonging as it were to different “countries” quite far removed from each other. Despite Hausa use of caravans, travels from north to south were accomplished over many 111 weeks. This prospect would not have made regular contacts possible. Nevertheless, we continue the search for links and suggestions, working from Hausaland down. “Agriculture and handcrafts and commerce were the main ways in which Hausa men traditionally made their living,” observes Adamu in his treatise on 112 Hausa and their economic activities in West Africa. The Hausa have predominantly been cultivators and the Fulani herdsmen. Adamu shows that the practice of pursuing several occupations simultaneously was long a notable feature of the group. The location of Hausaland in a savannah environment meant that agriculture could only be practiced for half the year, leaving the people free for craftwork and trade engagements in the remaining half of the year. In Southern Nigeria incidentally Hausa are known more for trade and craftwork than for agriculture but what interests us here is how Hausa commercial activities facilitated the extension of Islam into Eastern Nigeria. and magic and for recording narratives like evidence recorded in continuous love affairs. 110 Adiele Afigbo, “The Idea of Igbo Nationality and its Enemies,” in Toyin Falola (ed.), Igbo History and Society: The Essays of Adiele Afigbo (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2005); 428-425. 111 Data collected from migrants in 1952-3 showed that they required thirty-one days walk, at 20 miles per day, to move from Northern Nigeria to a place like Onitsha on the River Niger: Prothero, Migrant Labour from Sokoto Province, 36. 112 Adamu, The Hausa Factor, 7. 50

Herding was long a popular engagement of the Fulani, who with the Jihad became closely integrated with the Hausa ethnic group, and this took them seasonally beyond their home areas in search of water and pasture for their stock. Land hunger for grazing and farming was a major concern in Hausaland, preceding the colonial administration. In the early decades of the twentieth century, colonial authorities had identified the Hausa as producing two distinct groups of migrants: Men who migrate short distances from their homes for social and economic reasons to participate in craft making, do dry season farming —depending on availability of water, or to trade; and men who migrate over longer distances to engage in various laboring occupations not requiring any 113 skill. Individuals from the second group, encouraged by the peace and security embedded in pax Britannica, moved southwards into Eastern Nigeria. Little was recorded about this group and the places they migrated to prior to 1915 when the earliest official reference was made with respect to Gwandu Division in Sokoto Province from where that year “a large number of men … went … to the Gold Coast between September and December” in connection with the Kola 114 nut trade. Adamu notes that the majority of Hausa migrants of all ages were 115 traders and clerics. Nevertheless, he mentions towards the end of his book the presence of few Hausa elephant hunters who migrated before the end of the nineteenth century towards Eastern Nigeria; details he gleaned from the journal of McGregor Laird dated to the 1830s. The presence of elephant hunters in the Southeast, precisely around what later became Enugu city, was mentioned to me by the Sarikin Hausawa of Enugu, the chief of the Hausa community at Enugu, who recalled that when his father and few other Hausa moved down to Enugu from Kano in 1922 to join in the construction of the Port Harcourt – Enugu railway they met a few elephant hunters, who seemed not to be of Hausa origin: You know during the colonial period Hausa traders were few who were here. It was the hunters who came here first. They would come 116 and go. After some time the Hausa started coming.

113 Prothero, Migrant Labour from Sokoto Province, 17-18. 114 Ibid., 18. (A few colonial reports on Hausa–Nupe communities in Eastern Nigeria also exist, dating to the 1930s. The earliest of these reports came about on account of a court case involving right of headship of the Hausa settlement in Owerri Province, Southeastern Nigeria.) 115 Adamu, The Hausa Factor, 15. 116 Alhaji Sule, Sarikin Hausawa, interview, Enugu, May 2003. 51

The rarity of Hausa settlers in Eastern Nigeria before the 1930s was severally 117 reported in colonial records. However, some colonial reports on Hausa–Nupe settlements in the Eastern region in the 1930s complement the Sarikin’s story although the exact locations in the Eastern region where the hunters operated were not specified in the reports. Merging oral information and the sparse colonial reports with ethnographic studies deriving in part from oral reports from Tiv, Igala, and Idoma lands as well as the records of early European travelers, the story of elephant hunters in Eastern Nigeria can be sketched. Laura and Paul Bohannan report: “by 1906 Hausa traders were found in Tiv118 land.” They added that ivory armbands were popular with Tiv men and women but did not specify whether or not elephants were hunted in and around Tivland, although this could be assumed from the reference to ivory armbands. Adamugu, in Igalaland, located 24 river miles north of Idah, the ancient capital of Igala Kingdom, Armstrong notes, was a centre for the ivory trade as well as for slaves by 1830. Ivory would presumably have been supplied by professional Igala hunters who operated in the riverrine marshes from Idah southwards towards Onitsha, in Igboland; the Igbo section being of course largely exploited 119 by Igbo themselves. With respect to Idomaland, west of Igalaland and also north of Igboland, Armstrong in 1955 also writes: “elephants were common in Oturkpo region until two or three generations ago, but they were nearly all killed off by Hausa ivory hunters before the beginning of the British adminis120 tration.” The oral history of Asaba in Anioma, west of the River Niger, has it that elephants, common in its jungles some four hundred years ago, became ex121 tinct before the twentieth century through the activities of ivory hunters. With respect to Enugu, which was established by the colonial administration in 122 1915 as a camp for coal miners, ivory hunters whose ethnic identity was un117 “Intelligence report on Eteh Clan, Nsukka Division, Onitsha Province,” File: CSE

118 119 120 121 122 52

1/85/4782, National Archives, Enugu, reads: “a few Hausa traders were observed in the market. They are not very common and are simply passing through Eteh on their way to the south.” (The report was prepared in 1926.); “Hausa people,” File: AHODIST 14/1/436, National Archives, Enugu, records that the group of hunters and their aides who settled at Elele had by 1935 nearly all returned to their original homes. Laura and Paul Bohannan, The Tiv of Central Nigeria, 13 and 68. Armstrong, “The Igala,” 82. Armstrong, “The Idoma-speaking peoples,” 93. S. O. Okocha, interview, Asaba, February 2003; and Elizabeth Isichei, A History of Nigeria (London: Longman, 1983), 195. J. N. Young, “The Growth and Development of Enugu,” B.A. Project, University of Nigeria, Nsukka (1989), 2.

disclosed preceded other labourers into the new settlement, which decades later became the capital of Eastern Province (Eastern Nigeria), developing into the major city in Eastern Nigeria. The different sources mentioned did not clarify the identity of the ivory hunters in each of the ivory-hunting zones. However, the dairy of McGregor Laird, which Adamu refers to provides information on the ivory trade from which details on its chief architects, their areas of operation, and the periodicity of the hunt, could be extrapolated: When Laird and his associates started buying ivory from the peoples of the Niger-Benue confluence area in the 1830s, ivory was easy to procure because in most cases the chiefs and a few private individuals had some tusks stored in their houses. But over the years the supply along the river banks became exhausted and, with rising demand, regular hunting expeditions became necessary to maintain the level of supply. Hausa and Nupe hunters joined the Jukun, Tiv, Idoma, Igbo and Igbirra hunters in tracking down the elephants. By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the profitable hunting grounds were not along or even near the banks of the rivers Niger and Benue but the jungle forests to the south of the Benue and east of the Niger 123 below the confluence. Although we do not know as much as we should about elephant hunting in North Central, and Eastern, Nigeria, a number of issues are clear from the 124 statements above. Ivory trade would appear to have been relatively on a moderate scale in the 1830s when such European traders as Laird and his associates started buying it. This date also corresponds with the period efforts were under way to effect the ban on the slave trade. Although the slave trade continued clandestinely for many decades afterwards, by this time it was already a hazardous and costly venture for the slavers; and European traders were shifting attention to alternative trade goods including ivory. It also appears that the initial elephant hunters were drawn from the areas where the elephants were found and these were: in Jukunland, Tivland, Idomaland, and Igbirraland all in the Niger-Benue area (North Central Nigeria). The other two elephant bases

123 Adamu, The Hausa Factor, 105. 124 For more on elephant hunting in the nineteenth century see Edward Steinhart, “Elephant Hunting in 19th-Century Kenya: Kamba Society and Ecology in Transformation,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 33 (2) 2000, 335-349. 53

outside this zone were Igboland and, from Partridge’s report of 1905, around 125 Ogoja (precisely in Obubura Hill District) in the territory of the Ekoi. The entry in Mcgregor Laird’s journal would imply that in Igboland, as in the hunting sites of North Central Nigeria, elephant hunting was done by the indigenes until sometime later, at an undisclosed date, when Hausa and Nupe hunters joined in the business. But before Hausa and Nupe hunters began to operate alongside the locals in Oturkpo in Idomaland, they first functioned as 126 aides to local hunters. It could also have been the pattern by which they later operated in Igboland when the focus was shifted to that area. If we consider that “by the last quarter of the nineteenth century,” i.e. anytime between 1875 and 1899, “the profitable hunting grounds were … the jungle forests to the south of the Benue and east of the Niger below the confluence” we can surmise that it was sometime within this date that Nupe and Hausa hunters joined in the hunting operation in Igboland and perhaps also in other parts of Eastern Nigeria. This date also corresponds with Gavin and Oyemakinde’s report on when the offshoot from Adamawa entered the southern periphery of Eastern Nigeria through the Camerouns in search of slaves and ivory. Elephants were not hunted in the Ekoi forest, south of Arum, in Cross River Division (later renamed Ogoja Province) before 1898. Partridge, the Assistant District Commissioner in Southern Nigeria, records: “Major Roupel tells me that in 1895 he saw great herds of elephant in the district, and that in 1898 he 127 induced Hausas to come and hunt them.” On the invitation of Major Roupel, hunters moved into the area from “Northern Nigeria, Lagos [Western Nigeria], Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast.” Hunters from Lagos, Yorubaland, operated in Obokpa, in Oban Hill District. These hunters first obtained the necessary license from the British colonial authority before they could operate in Ekoi forest. By 1904, there were few elephants in this area as reported by Partridge: “Southern Nigeria is a poor hunting-ground for the sportsman who seeks “big game,” and the few large quadrupeds that it does possess are already decreas128 ing in numbers.” In Abakaliki Division of Ogoja Province the situation appears a little differ129 ent. Nupe and Hausa hunters operated in this area in the first decade of the 125 Charles Partridge, Cross River Natives: Being Some Notes on the Primitive Pagans of 126 127 128 129 54

Obubura Hill District Southern Nigeria (London: Hutchinson and Co., 1905), 114-115. Adamu, The Hausa Factor, 105. Charles Partridge, Cross River Natives, 115. Ibid. Names of sub-units or divisions were changed severally during the colonial period. I

twentieth century. They did so at the invitation of the British colonial officers acting on behalf of the local farmers who wanted the elephants cleared as they posed serious threat to crops. Elephant hunting ended in Abakaliki by 1920, a 130 little later than it did in other parts of Eastern Nigeria. This may be the result of the lateness of the commencement of operations here. Meanwhile, the hunters moved into Abakaliki from Ekoiland precisely from Ejeke (or Ejege) on 131 the Okpauku River, north of the Cross River. The need to service the ivory trade in its twilight years and later to contain the menace of elephants on crops brought Nupe and Hausa hunters into the forests of Igboland and its neighbors from probably 1890. The Igala were not specifically mentioned as having hunted elephants anywhere in Eastern Nigeria although as is well known their close interactions with the Igbo dated two 132 centuries previously. The once lucrative ivory trade began to decline as, wrote Laird, “supply along the river banks became exhausted” causing it, in its later stages early in the twentieth century, to depend largely on the highly wooded forests of the Ekoi and the Igbo. The very sites migrant hunters operated in were Obubura Hill (Ogoja) and Oban, Onitsha, and in locations where Enugu and Port Harcourt later sprang up. Apart from those hunters from Nupe and Hausaland, it was not clear if others from Lagos, Sierra Leone, and the Gold Coast were also Muslims. The colonial administration was interested in the hunt for revenue reasons hence in 1901 Ralph Moor, the High Commissioner of the Protectorate of Southern Nigeria, enacted “The Wild Animals, Birds, and Fish Preservation Proclamation” to regulate hunting, specifying which animals, birds, and fish should be hunted, when and how, and what royalties the government should derive. Emphasis was given to elephants and their tusks: The Proclamation required that young elephants and female elephants, when accompanied by its young, should not be hunted, captured, or killed. Matured elephants, however, may be hunted “in such numbers and under such other conditions as the High Commissioner may prescribe.” This appears also to have been intended as a try to adopt the correct designation for the exact the date of reference. Before May 1906, Abakaliki Division was under Afikpo District in Cross River Division. From May 1906 to 1913, it became Abakaliki Division of Eastern Province. From 1914 until 1959, the same area was known as Abakaliki Division of Ogoja Province, Eastern Nigeria. 130 Ottenberg, Farmers and Townspeople, 64. (For the date of their operation, see Adamu, The Hausa Factor, 106) 131 Ibid., 77. 132 Igala fishermen operated extensively in Asaba in Anioma, even founding a fishing settlement on the banks of the Niger. 55

Fig. 7: Elephant hunting sites in Eastern Nigeria conservation policy in the face of the apparent absence of such considerations by hunters. The Proclamation was the prelude for the licenses issued to migrant hunters who hunted in the forest of Ekoi, south of Arum. It was clearly specified: “Nothing in this Proclamation or in any Order there-under shall prevent any person from capturing or killing any animal seriously injuring crops, cattle, 133 land, or other property.” It does not appear likely that the indigenous hunters operated on license in the same way as hunters from outside the region. The exception made on grounds of damage to crops, cattle, land or property would have provided a covering for their operations. In Oban District in particular hunting was an esteemed profession and the indigenous people had a hunting 133 “Appendix No. I,” in Partridge, Cross River Natives, 308-313. 56

deity represented in masked forms with an axe held between its jaws to signify its special fierceness. Talbot describes the Ekoi of Oban District as “a race of hunters.” The towns of Niaji and Ndebbiji, he notes, were “the most celebrated 134 in the district for their skill in the chase.” It was not only the Igbo of Abakaliki who needed elephants hunted off their territories because of damages to crops. British colonial officers in the early days of their administration of Eastern Nigeria had reasons to want the elephants reduced if not entirely hunted off. We already have evidence of Major Roupel who invited Hausa and other hunters in 1898 to hunt in Ekoi forest, south of Arum, for reasons unspecified. Following his survey of the land of Ekoi in 1907, Talbot writes with respect to Oban District: All along one sees the spoor of various bush animals, which use the road as well as their two-footed brothers. Antelope, buffalo, wild pig, leopard, and elephant, all leave their traces—the latter too often in broken bridges, which, alas! were not constructed with a view to such 135 heavy traffic. Indeed persons of Northern Nigeria—from Adamawa, Nupe, and Hausaland— were among the occasional visitors to the southern periphery of Eastern Nigeria. They came in connection with the trade in ivory. That their stay was fluid is not in doubt. Notwithstanding, their presence alarmed European missionaries working in the region. Mention has already been made of the earliest reference to their presence in Calabar in 1890. This was followed by another remark made fourteen years later by Bishop James Brown of the Niger Mission at their presence at Calabar: Mohammedanism, represented by a floating population from Lagos and other places on the coast, has had a considerable growth since my last visit in 1902. This religion has not yet attracted the native Calabar. He rather looks down upon it and regards its worship and the cere136 monies connected with it as unmeaning.

134 Ibid, 642, 644. 135 P. A. Talbot, “The Land of the Ekoi, Southern Nigeria,” The Geographical Journal, Vol. 36, No. 6. (1910), 639.

136 “A Report of a Missionary Journey in Southern Nigeria by James Johnson, 1903–1904.” G3A3/09-10 Niger Misson. 57

The Organization of the hunt There is very little information on the organization of the hunt in Eastern Nigeria. Elephant hunting was a group affair. We learn with respect to the hunting by foreigners in Ekoi forest, south of Arum, that local custom required a hunter to give to the chief in whose territory he killed an elephant one of the tusks and certain portions of the highly esteemed flesh. This custom, observes Partridge, was the cause of frequent disputes, most probably between the chiefs and the foreign hunters. Adamu’s fieldwork in Oturkpo and Idomaland, both of which lie north of Igboland, suggests that financiers who were veteran hunters organized hunts. Hausa hunting parties composed of hunters, scouts who surveyed the movement of herds, and a mallam diviner who advised the leader of the group when to dispatch a hunting party. Three financiers known to have operated in the last quarter of the nineteenth century in the forests of Idomaland, Igboland, and 137 138 Ogoja (Ekoi) were Na-bakango from Kano city, Mallam Dikko (Diko), and Bagobiri from Gobir. A small group of hunters from around River Niger assumed by colonial authorities to be Hausa, according to Patridge, and led by Sarikin Muru lived for a while at Nishi Atam, on the right bank of the Cross River. By 1903 they had moved to Ejege from where some later moved to Abakaliki to 139 hunt at the invitation of the farmers in Abakaliki Division. Eventual settlement of these migrant hunters at Abakaliki would however await a latter date being motivated by reasons other than hunting. This group of hunters would from all likelihood be of Nupe origin as their homeland was situated around the Niger and they were said to have come to the Cross River by walking from 140 Ogrugu (Ogurugu) on the Anambra creek. For the time they settled at Nishi Atam, they paid an annual rent of 20 pieces of cloth worth £6 (pounds Sterling) to the chiefs of the town. Tusks realized from the Cross River District were

137 “Status of Hausa Chiefs,” File: AHODIST 14/1/436 (1935), National Archives, Enugu. 138 Adamu, The Hausa Factor, 106. Na-bakango hunted in Idoma territory for about 15 to 20 years before the establishment of colonial rule in Idomaland around 1909. He died shortly after the beginning of colonial rule in the area. Dikko is the same as the Diko in colonial records who in 1891 settled his family at Elele, some fifty-six kilometers north of where Port Harcourt later sprang up and where he died in 1920, and Bagobiri from Gobir in Sokoto Emirate who operated in Ogoja. 139 Partridge, Cross River Natives, 116. See also Ottenberg, Farmers and Townspeople. 140 Partridge, 116. 58

transported back to Northern Nigeria or to trade outposts in German Cameroun 141 that was nearer to the division. That these hunters from Northern Nigeria were Muslims would seem not to be in doubt. Patridge had a high estimation of them, anticipating that their ordered existence and deference to authority might rub off on the local people of the Cross River interior. Could this perhaps be the main motivation why their presence was courted for the Cross River interior? He writes: The hour or so I spent in their clean settlement at Ejege in November 1903, carried me back in remembrance to the compounds of Mamadu Latopa of Idah and Sabba of Alabeta. These little Mohammedan communities [Idah and Alabeta] are oases of comparatively high culture in the midst of a desert of pagan primitiveness. Their superior form of religion with its high code of self-denial and morality, their decent picturesque clothes (breeches, flowing robe, and turban) their wellbuilt and well-kept dwellings, their knowledge of arts and comforts unknown to the pagan natives are everyday exercising an influence for good upon the people among whom they have taken up their abode. They are courteous and dignified in their demeanor and always anxious to learn and willing to carry out the wishes of the gov142 ernment… Later, Patridge would wish that “if it is ordained that [the Cross River peoples] shall be “civilized” out of their present condition, the men will adopt the graceful draperies of Mohammedan Africans … and the women the very becoming 143 series of cloths or wrappers worn by Hausa and Yoruba women.” Sentiments such as were expressed by Partridge was very common among British colonial officials in Nigeria who, thoroughly enamoured with Muslim way of life did not disguise their contempt of non-Muslim groups in Nigeria, believing rather that forcing them into close contact with Muslims would facilitate their cultural 144 development. The eloquent praise and admiration of Muslims by colonial of141 142 143 144

Ibid. Ibid., 116-117. Ibid., 161. Ubah, writing on the marginalization of non-Muslims of Northern Nigeria by British colonial administration, notes “The argument put forward in support of this viewpoint was that the Fulani system of administration was of superior quality to that of nonMuslim populations. The expectation was that such imposition would be a blessing to the people concerned as it is believed that this would raise their level of cultural development.” Ubah, “Colonial administration,” 134. 59

Fig. 8: Southern Nigeria showing the provinces in Eastern region by 1925 ficials stands in contrast with Christian missionary views of the same group. The following remark by George Basden of the Niger Mission in 1910 on mission work in Onitsha exemplifies the unflattering assessment of Muslims by missionaries who esteemed the local population morally better: At present Islam has not touched the Ibo and will not… Give the Ibo the choice and most assuredly he will choose Christianity. Why has not Mohammedanism won converts from among the Ibos yet? Because the Igbo is too sturdy of character. He is also a cute observer of things as they really are. He judges by results. He takes note of the 145 cheating in trade, the deceit and lying of the professors of Islam. Nupe and Hausa hunters who operated in the jungles of Onitsha, Ogoja, around Enugu and Port Harcourt did not settle permanently and often did not 146 spend any considerable time during each visit. They would come and go, possibly after a successful hunting expedition, to dispose of their catch before another visit. Adamu notes that each hunting party might consist of about fifty 145 G3A3/011-12, Niger Mission, November 1910. 146 Alhaji Sule, interview cited. 60

persons and might be away for up to one month before returning to their 147 homes as the Hausa rarely totally emigrated. Diko’s party, according to Aliru Diko his son, comprised forty men who moved in groups because of unsafe highways. Elephant hunting began to come to an end early in the twentieth century when elephants became scarce in Eastern Nigeria and at which point an unspecified number of hunters and their aides had returned home. Aliru Diko reports in a letter to the District Officer at Ahoada in Owerri Province: My father settled at Elele with many Hausas but now many are dead and some have gone to their homes, with the exception of two others 148 in addition to Mallam Agu, a woman and a man. 149

Some who joined Diko at Elele were from Bida in Nupeland. These hunters and their aides moved down on foot or on horses, and some rode their cows down, in some cases covering a distance of over 600 square miles to the South150 east. Yoruba, Sierra Leonean, and Ghanaian hunters who came from Lagos and Ilorin covered less distances, sometimes traveling by river transport to the Southeast. By the end of the first decade of the twentieth century most foreign hunters had returned home. Those who did not, quite few in number it would seem, settled in Eastern Nigeria seeking employment with the colonial authorities as opportunities for them materialized, and taking up trade. Diko, Aliru’s father, who settled at Elele in 1891, was described as one of the Africans who took part in the military subjugation of Arochukwu, Bende, Ahoada, Aba, and parts of Ibibioland between 1901 and 1902. He also took part in the “Expedition of Gun Destruction,” a colonial subjugation offensive by which the British relieved the local people of any form of firearm or weapon after military con151 quest. Dodo, a former hunting colleague of Diko, also said to have been his former slave, acted as guide for the British expeditions to Allua, Igrita, Mbodo, and Ebeda, all Ikwerre (Igbo) communities of Ahoada Division, now in Rivers 152 State. The presence of Hausa soldiers in the 1901-1902 Aro expedition, christened “a war to end all wars” is significant to our examination. It was the 147 148 149 150 151 152

Adamu, The Hausa Factor, 15 and 105. “Status of Hausa Chiefs,” paragraph 6. Ibid. Prothero, Migrant Labour, 36. “Status of Hausa Chiefs,” paragraphs 6 and 20. “A Report on the History and Organization of the Ikwerri People living in the Elele and Nkarahia Native Court Areas: Ahoada Division,” File: ADODIST 14/1/217, National Archives, Enugu. 61

first project by British colonizers that brought into Igboland a considerable 153 number of Hausa, some 317 men. Northern Nigeria Protectorate then a separate colony from the Southern Nigeria Protectorate contributed this regiment of Hausa soldiers. In the years following, the colonial administrators of Southern Nigeria would depend as much on Hausa soldiers as on Yoruba soldiers in subjecting Igboland to British rule. For the periods they were stationed in Igboland Hausa soldiers enhanced the minimal number of other Hausa and northern Muslim migrants, which included hunters and traders. One would expect afterwards clear interactional distance between the soldiers and the Igbo whom they militarily subdued as the various expeditions had been instructed “to suppress barbarous native customs, to collect all rifles and cap guns from natives.” 154 Accoding to a report “The military conquest of Igboland was a stunning experience for the Igbo. Burning of houses, farms, barns and seizure or killing of 155 domestic animals characterized the British expeditions and patrols.” Such an experience was unlikely to endear the conquered with their conqurors. Diko founded the oldest Hausa settlement at Elele in 1891 close to where the city of Port Harcourt sprang up. By 1920, giving a space of twenty-nine years, there were twelve “strangers’ settlements” in Eastern Nigeria as the table below shows. Not all the settlements were of Hausa and Nupe origin. Yoruba migrants from Ilorin founded a couple of settlements. A former Yoruba hunter first settled in Oguta in southern Igboland while the Ibagwa-nkwo settlement in northern Igboland was credited to Yoruba traders. Hunters and other migrants temporarily settled in a few places not indicated in the table below. 156 These were Obopka in Oban Hill District where Yoruba hunters operated and Nishi Atam on the bank of the Cross River but these settlements broke up eventually when their settlers returned back home or joined other settlements. There were relocations from among the early settlers who lived at Elele. 157 Settlements at Owerri, Omokun, Port Harcourt, Aba, Umuahia, Uzuakoli, and Afikpo Road, on land belonging to the Ishiagu people of Aba, began as as satel153 Mabel Ukagwu, “The Development of Cattle Trade in Imo State with Special Reference

154 155 156 157

62

to Umuahia-Ibeku up to 1960.” M. A. Dissertation, University of Nigeria (1987), 44; and, I. R. A. Ozigbo, A History of Igboland in the 20th Century (Enugu: Snaap Press, 1999), 33. Ozigbo, A History of Igboland, 37. J. E. N. Nwanguru, Aba and British Rule: The Evolution and Administrative Developments of the Old Aba Division of Igboland 1896–1960 (Enugu: Santana Press, 1973), 73. Partridge, Cross River Natives, 321. Strangers’ settlements in Aba quadrupled over a number of decades. Three were occupied by northerners of mixed ethnic origin and one by Yoruba migrants. Baba Ibrahim, Sarikin Hausawa, interview, Aba, July 2003.

Fig. 9: Strangers’ Settlements in Eastern Nigeria between 1891 and 1920 Division

Settlement

Town of Origin

Year of settlement

Name of founder

Remarks

Owerri

Owerri

Kano

1903

Yabiya (Yahia)

Yabiya later returned to Kano

Oguta

Ilorin

1902

Ajala

Elele

Kano

1891

Diko

Elephant hunter

Omokun

Kano

Unknown*

Kasimu Agu

Elephant hunter who came with Diko and first lived at Elele

Portharcourt

Zaria

1917

Halihu (Alilu)

A Tailor

Okigwe

Okigwi Uzuakoli Umuahia Afikpo Road

Borno Sokoto Kano Gombe

1909 –– 1915 ––

Sali Momo Oseni Jibrin

Oseni came in 1913 and first lived in Afikpo Road (in Aba) and Abakaliki before moving to Umuahia

Aba

Aba

Bauchi

1910–12

Bello

Land on which the settlement developed was purchased in July 1936**

Ogoja

Ikom AbakpaAbakaliki

Bauchi ––

–– 1918

Boyi ––

Abakaliki settlement was started by Hausa traders operating in the Cross River area at the invitation of Hausa soldiers temporarily stationed at Abakaliki***

Obudu****

AbakpaObudu

––

1911

––

Exact year of beginning of settlement unknown, but was in existence by 1911 census with 460 settlers.

Nsukka*****

Ibagwa-aka

Bida (Nupe) Ilorin/Oshun (Yorubaland)

1916 1918

––

Degema

Baba Aridjo

*

Agu came with Diko and Dodo. Dodo was reported to have been Diko’s slave who became the leader of the settlement after the death of Diko. ** Baba Ibrahim, Sarikin Hausawa of Aba, interview, July 2005. *** Ottenberg, Farmers and Townspeople, 62. **** Information on this settlement came from “Report on the Southern Nigeria Census, 1911,” File: 4179/1912, National Archives, Enugu. There is no data on when the settlement was founded, but by 1911, its population stood at 460 persons. ***** A second settlement at Nsukka Division would have been that of Aduku at Amufie, Enugu Ezike. However, the special circumstance of Aduku’s adoption into Enugu Ezike community changed his status to that of an indigene of Enugu Ezike. At a much later date, a strangers’ settlement developed at Ogrute in Enugu Ezike.

63

158

lite outposts by persons who came with or later joined Diko at Elele. These subsequent arrivals, encouraged to migrate by news of commercial prospects, first lived at Elele or Owerri before exploiting the opportunity provided by the construction of roads and railway from 1910 onwards to found new sites in places like Obudu and Ikom where they could operate as Sakirin Hausawa and enjoy direct patronage from colonial authorities for services such as providing 159 labor from their own hometowns for the colonial administration. Mallam Halilu, on arrival in Eastern Nigeria in 1917, heard of plans to build Port Harcourt and volunteered to provide 500 laborers from his hometown of Zaria. He left Owerri where he first settled with Yahia and moved to Port Harcourt to become the first Hausa settler, but recognized Dodo as the leader of Hausa mi160 grants in this part of the region. All subsequent founders of the satellite camps began as Sarikin Hausawa in their settlements and as representatives of those who settled in the area before them. Strangers’ settlements also sprang up at Onitsha and Enugu owing to infrastructural developments mainly the building of roads and railway and the establishment of government stations, all of 161 which made trade possibilities in these places attractive. 158 159 160 161

64

These towns grew as railway settlements. “Status of Hausa Chiefs.” Ibid. A note on the terminology used with respect to strangers’ settlements: Settlements founded and populated by persons of Northern Nigeria origin were indiscriminately referred to, by colonial authorities in Eastern Nigeria, as “Hausa settlements” or for specificity as “Hausa and Nupe settlements.” Today, they are more commonly called Hausa settlements. In reality these settlements took in persons of Northern Nigeria origin, including those from and around Bornu and Adamawa, and excluded the Igala and Idoma with whom the Igbo have had centuries of mutually benefiting contacts and who, in most cases, lived among the Igbo. This situation was made possible by the absence of any religious barrier between them. Yoruba migrants, however, tended to live in separate settlements away from migrants from Northern Nigeria but still close enough to them. In Abakaliki Division, for instance, they formed a settlement within the original Hausa settlement. When these strangers’ settlements were not called Hausa-Nupe settlements, they were referred to as Abakpa—a word with a curious and as yet unclear origin. The Igbo, Efik, and Ekoi used this term, and also the colonial officials, but the northerners called their settlements Ngwa-Hausa, meaning “where the Hausa settle.” Two main threads of meaning will at the moment be associated with Abakpa. One refers to the name of the Qua or Kwa, an Ekoi group, found around Calabar but who later were displaced by the Efik. Talbot’s report suggests that while Abakpa was the name Efik gave this Ekoi group they met around Calabar, it was not necessarily the name the group went by as they were known to have called themselves Qua, probably after the Qua River. The other is the terminology by which the ethnic communities in the Benue River Valley

The Southern Nigeria 1911 Census Report provides data on Hausa presence in Eastern Nigeria by this date. Persons of Northern Nigeria origin at Abakpa in Obudu Division and at an Hausa settlement in Ogoja Division (exact location unspecified) numbered 460 and 300 respectively. The exception was Onitsha Division, then in the Central Province, where no migrant from Northern Nigeria was listed but rather some 2,153 Igala indigenes from North Central Ni162 geria. The actual counting of persons and the language listing in the Central and Eastern Provinces reinforce each other. Igala (written Igarra) was the only non-indigenous language listed to have been in use in Awka, Onitsha, and Udi 163 Districts of Eastern Nigeria. Hausa language was not listed as used by locals or strangers in the much larger Eastern Province by 1911. The census report presupposes a number of facts: it is either that those Hausa hunters who settled at Elele, Owerri, Oguta, and Omokun returned to their towns by the time of the census or that they moved to Ogoja or Obudu where they were counted with other persons of Northern Nigeria origin settled there. The important fact, though, is that by 1911, there were 760 persons from northeast and northwest Nigeria in the entire Eastern regionand these were found at Abakpa Obudu and at the Hausa settlement at Ogoja. No other town reported in the colonial records and from oral sources to have been settled by strangers from Northern Nigeria was listed as having any stranger in 1911. The implication would be that these early settlements were very fluid and did not always have settlers. After the census a new Hausa settlement named Abakpa sprang up in Abakaliki. This settlement started at the instance of Hausa soldiers in the Southern Nigeria Regiment who were stationed in the town in 1911. They were first quartered in Abakaliki town from 1905 to 1908 during the colonial offensive to subdue the Cross River basin region and open it up for trade to and from (North Central Nigeria) addressed the Hausa. Samuel Crowther, in his diary of the expedition up the Niger, recorded that the Igbirra, Idoma, Kororofa, and others found above River Niger, called the Hausa Abakpa. (Jukun rendering of the name was Abakwa and it was for the original Hausa settlers in their midst.) Besides these two threads of meaning, Abakpa was the name of an Igala town on the boundary between Igala and Idomaland. From all indications, Abakpa became for the people of Eastern Nigeria what Sabon Gari has been to Muslims of Northern Nigeria. Both were settlements of “native strangers” as the British called persons from other parts of Nigeria who were not indigenes of a given area. 162 “Southern Nigeria Census Report,” File 4179/1912, National Archives, Kaduna. 163 Ibid., 10-55. Igala was also listed for Agbor, Aboh, Asaba, and Kwale Districts of the Central Province. These territories belong today in Anioma. 65

164

Calabar. These Hausa soldiers deployed to Abakaliki in 1911 at the instance of the Izzi-Ezza boundary dispute invited fellow Hausa traders living in the Cross River region to Abakaliki. The traders and their leader, Sarikin Bambo from Zaria, moved to Abakaliki, living within the government station, until after World War I. With the help of the colonial administration, they leased land for a settlement from the Agbaja and Nkaliki, owners of the land on which Abakaliki town developed, and named it Abakpa Abakaliki. These traders were later joined by traders from other parts of Northern Nigeria and also from Yorubaland in Western Nigeria. Abakpa Abakaliki settlement developed into an active trade and service centre for colonial personnel, having also in residence wives of Hausa traders and hunters, Muslim religious teachers, and prostitutes, 165 altogether numbering some 300 persons by 1918. The general use of the term Hausa for persons whose homelands were in territory above the rivers Benue and Niger confuses the actual identity of the individuals in question. Early records were frequently indiscriminate in regarding persons from around and above the rivers Niger and Benue as Hausa while in fact they may not be at all. This situation further confuses issues as the Igbo in particular have long taken it for granted that Hausa and Muslim are synonymous, erroneously projecting the view that whoever is Hausa is automatically Muslim, a summation that does not do justice to the considerable populations of Hausa, Fulani, and Nupe that were not Islamized and therefore nonMuslim. The inter-ethnic misconstruction caused by this confusion of terms is currently all too obvious in Igbo responses to Islam as would be discussed later.

Forms of interaction with migrants There is little information on the relationship of the elephant hunters with their host communities. Ethnographic studies and Adamu’s account do not suggest any close interaction between Nupe, Hausa, and Yoruba hunters on one hand and the peoples of Eastern Nigeria on the other capable of engendering conversion to Islam in Onitsha, Ogoja, Enugu, Port Harcourt or Abakaliki where these hunter-traders operated and where Muslim soldiers were quartered before 1920. Close contacts when it did occur, like when mutual economic interests brought 164 Ottenberg, Farmers and Townspeople, 52. Adamu, p. 16, argues that the Hausa in the colonial army were not original Hausa as popularly assumed but rather freed slaves of Hausa people who had been “Hausanized” and therefore spoke the Hausa language. The same Hausanized ex-slaves joined the colonial army. 165 Ottenberg, Farmers and Townspeople, 62-63. 66

them together as it occasionally did in the markets, were through the agency of 166 middlemen. The major middlemen functionaries in Eastern Nigeria before 1905 were the Aro. Ottenberg referring to their activities writes: “Serving as middlemen between the Igbo interior and coastal peoples in the Abakaliki re167 gion, they settled near or at existing markets…” (Note also Horton’s already mentioned remark that Aro could have had only the most indirect commercial 168 links with Islamized groups to the north.) The Aro functioned for much of its pre-colonial and early colonial eras as middlemen in many well known Igbo and non-Igbo markets. Nupe traders, according to the journal of the Lander brothers, held sway in 1830 at Adamugu and Ikiri, north and south of Idah respectively alongside Igbo traders from Bonny. These were centres for trade in 169 slaves and ivory in Igalaland. Partridge wrote about the Efik who competed with the Aro on the Calabar estuary: The Efiks have for several generations been the chief medium through whom Europeans have traded with the numerous tribes that inhabit the banks and inland parts of the Cross River from its mouth to the Anglo-German boundary, their language has become the lingua franca of the Calabar and Cross River divisions, and their laws, customs, fetishes, and fashions have been adopted by many of the up-river peoples. According to Sir Harry Johnston, they are allied in language, 170 and no doubt, in origin to the Ibos of the Niger Delta. Partridge further asserts that Efiks and Inokuns (another term for the Aro) have so long been the middlemen trading between the European factories of Calabar and the local markets of the Cross River that “both objected to opening up of the country which would bring the bush natives into direct trade with Euro171 pean merchants.” Adamu’s study informs us that the commercial networks of the Hausa until the end of the nineteenth century went in all directions but far away from Eastern Nigeria. Traders who ventured too far south operated at Bida and 166 Dauda Ojobe explained that the desire to navigate around the middleman system,

167 168 169 170 171

which dominated inter-group trade relations, was what motivated Aduku, the Nupe trader who introduced Islam in Enugu Ezike, to move southwards from Igala to Enugu Ezike in 1919. Ottenberg, Farmers and Townspeople, 27 Robin Horton, “On the Rationality of Conversion” Part I, 229. Armstrong, “The Igala,” 82. Partridge, Cross River Natives, 32-33 Ibid., 74 67

Lafia, eventually extending to Igala and Idoma markets from where they sent their goods to Lagos. At these markets the Igala and Idoma were the chief 172 middlemen. Meanwhile, Aro trade networks went southwards towards the Atlantic through the Bight of Biafra, which was the normal exit route for slaves, their major export. Quite naturally, slaves from Northern Nigeria passed through Hausa dealers into the hands of Aro traders at markets located in Igumale in Idomaland and also through Igalaland. That northward trade traffic as we have seen in the preceding pages was not as strong as its southward counterpart towards the Atlantic. With much of the interactions between Igbo and Hausa carried out through Igala and Idoma middlemen, Hausa traders failed to influence their Aro trade contacts whose belief in their indomitable deity Ibini Ukpabi and the economic advantages of that deity allowed no room for acceptance of a rival religious worldview. Aro in effect would have had little if any inclination to jeopardize their economy then based on their deity and their skillful manipulation of the fear of neighboring peoples and trading partners for it. The trade contacts early in the twentieth century depended also on Aro as leading middlemen. Just as Ibini Ukpabi continued to be central to the Aro trading empire so also was the belief in Allah for Hausa Muslim operations, economic and otherwise. Again even at this point there was nothing to suggest that the Aro showed the acceptance of another religious opinion except Christianity and this refers also to the decades after the destruction of Ibini Ukpabi 173 by the colonial government. Partridge who applauded “the great intelligence of the Aro” writes in 1905 both about them as well as the Ibibio and Ekoi of Calabar Division and indirectly of the Hausa and Igala: I met some of them far away in the interior of the Ikwe country, where they are called Inokuns, and where their higher culture and intelligence and superior clothing easily distinguish them from the local natives, from whom they differ almost as much as the Hausa traders from the pagan Igarras of the Niger. I found these Inokuns always pleasant to deal with—intractable, intelligent, and clean, and appar174 ently, trusted and liked by the wild tribes among whom they settled. Until 1910, therefore, the leading middlemen in Eastern Nigeria were the Aro, followed by the Efik. With these groups firmly in control of trade around the 172 Adamu, The Hausa factor. See illustration on pages 64-65. 173 Partridge, Cross River Natives, 52-53. 174 Partridge, 52-53, 67 68

Cross River, the Calabar estuary, and on the tributaries of the Niger onwards to the Atlantic Ocean there were hardly possibilities of close interaction between the migrants from Northern Nigeria, as yet very few in number, and the Igbo, Efik, Ibibio, and Ijaw. There must have been some understanding between the hunters who first came to Eastern Nigeria and their host communities in whose jungles they eked out a living. Although the hunting parties were few and therefore their population insignificant in relation to their hosts, it would seem probable that if there was any mixing between the indigenes and the hunters, it would have led to one or two things: a stated or unstated understanding that the hunters do not interfere with the indigenous customs of their hosts, and, some curiosity – with or without any admiration – over each other’s practices. Going by customary practice in the Southeast, no stranger from one village group or town had the right to settle in another except on permission. In Igboland approval was “given to those who are ready to recognize the town as befriending them but is refused to any who will not give proof that they will be orderly law-abiding in175 habitants.” The exception to this practice involved forceful displacements of militarily weak groups by stronger groups like in Abakaliki Division where the stronger and numerically dominant Igbo dispossessed some Cross River groups 176 of their lands in the attempt to address their land scarcity. A report on Abakpa settlement at Abakaliki division of Ogoja Province before 1920 sheds some light into the nature of the interaction between the northeast Igbo and Hausa strangers up to this date: The Izi, and probably some Ezza, used to come to the growing Abakpa market to sell yams and other foods, but the relationship with Abakpa’s inhabitants was at best a shy one. Until the end of World War I, Muslim hunters, probably Nupe and Hausa, mainly from Bida and Sokoto, brought ivory and elephant tails to sell at the Abakpa market, where among others, wealthy Izi and Ezza bought them for ceremonial dress. Muslim traders living in Abakpa married Muslim women from the north. At this time the men did not attempt to proselytize. Females

175 “Minute M.P. 3402/03 of 12.10.1903 by the Acting High Commissioner Leslie Probyn in the file Aro Dist. 1/7/33,” National Archives, Enugu. Taken from A.E. Afigbo, Ropes of Sand, 255. 176 Ottenberg, Farmers and Townspeople, 9-10. 69

rarely traveled with the trading groups, except as wives or as prosti177 tutes. Traders from Northern Nigeria who operated in the Eastern region before the 1920s organized their businesses very professionally, staying at settlements belonging to northerners, often with persons from their own home areas and usually of similar religion. They rendered considerable help to each other provid178 ing credit facilities and interpretive skills. Lovejoy describes each satellite settlement as largely independent of the non-Muslim society. The Hausa commercial settlement also functioned as a twin town to an indigenous administrative 179 center. One other factor that determined the nature of interactions between migrant communities and their hosts before 1920 was the issue of ethnic pride. Most early migrants to Eastern Nigeria were connected with the colonial government either as soldiers, servants, or as other employees. Some ambiguity existed over the status of the local people on one hand vis-à-vis the African workers of the colonial regime along with the Hausa and Nupe traders on the other. Using the experience in Abakaliki Division, where from 1905 Hausa and Yoruba in the colonial army moved into the Division to effect the subjugation of the local people, they looked upon the indigenes unfavourably. Ottenberg records: The Hausa, Fulani, Yoruba, Bini and Efik at the government station generally considered themselves socially and culturally superior to the rural people: They saw themselves as associated with the British with whom they worked, coming among rural peoples they considered to be scantily dressed, living a simple rural village life, and having strange rituals, views not too dissimilar from the British towards 180 Abakaliki’s inhabitants. The aloofness of migrant settlers towards the inhabitants would at best have been reciprocated resulting undoubtedly in the Igbo of Abakaliki Division having very limited contact with migrants at the Abakpa settlement. Karigoudar writing about the same migrant settlement in Abakaliki Division in the 1920s notes: “No Ibo lived there at this time, as far as is known, though some began 177 178 179 180 70

Ibid., 64-5. Interviews with Barrister Aduku, Dauda Ojobe, and Alhaji Mutalib (2003). Lovejoy, Ecology and Ethnography of Muslim trade, 156-58. Ottenberg, Farmers and Townspeople, 60.

trading foodstuffs with the Northerners, but these local Ibo were too shy to en181 gage in large-scale long-term economic relationships.” Fights and killings commonly occurred at Abakpa among the Igbo about this time and must have been of such intensity that it remained in the memories of those who witnessed 182 them as late as 1960. 183 When elephant hunting in Eastern Nigeria ceased by 1920, hunters who remained in Igboland turned their attention to other lucrative engagements including trade in horses and cattle and in such agricultural goods as palm oil and kernels, which along with rubber, were major commodities in markets in 184 Nsukka and Owerri Divisions and also in the delta region. Hunters like Diko of Katsina and Kasumu Agu had come down with a few herds of cattle. They switched over to herding and marketing of cattle meat besides seeking for profitable engagement as labourers, guides or soldiers with the colonial administration. Cattle meat was first sold at Okigwe at the military barracks in 1906 but was soon discontinued when the soldiers were moved away. Beef would again be sold in Nkalagu in 1914 and at Umuahia in 1918. Ottenberg shows that Nkalagu market was “of great interest as it seems to be the meeting place of 185 north and south.” It was held every four days. An important trade commodity was the horse, which came from the north. Locally made cotton goods were also common and cattle were sold in some numbers. Umuahia eventually became the major cattle centre of Eastern Nigeria feeding lesser centers such as Abakaliki, Uzuakoli, Owerri, and Enugu. From these centers, the rest of the region was served with cattle and the by products. All over the Southeast, Hausa migrants dominated the cattle business and the cattle trade became the catalyst for the multiplication of the Hausa and Nupe and other strangers’ settlements in the region. One quality of the cattle trade was its domination by Hausa traders and its dependence on the Hausa language. Ukagwu’s study of the cattle trade in Eastern Nigeria from 1906 reveals the impact of language restrictions on inter-ethnic relations early in the twentieth century. For the reason that the language of 181 182 183 184

Ishwaran Karigoudar, Politics and Social Change (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1967), 180. Ottenberg, Farmers and Townspeople, 67. Ibid., 64. The Nigerian delta region was formerly within the Oil Rivers zone. The area was a major producer of palm oil in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and has since remained so. The five ethnic groups under discussion in this chapter fall within the area designated by the British from 1885 to 1893 as the Oil Rivers. 185 Ottenberg, Farmers and Townspeople, 61-62. 71

trade was Hausa, transactions were done through interpreters “who spoke the Igbo and (sometimes Ibibio) and Hausa languages.” The relevance of these interpreters to the trade was such that they “received a commission of about 6 186 pence … from both the seller and the buyer for every cow that was sold.” Although indigenes attempted to learn Hausa for trade purposes, Hausa traders on their part were unenthusiastic about learning Igbo and other languages used in Eastern Nigeria. This attitude both enhanced their cultural exclusivity and created enough distance between them and their hosts. Ukagwu concludes: “In 187 any case, the Hausa merchants did not embark on any proselytization…” In conclusion, this chapter illuminates our understanding of the progression of Islam to Eastern Nigeria. First, elephant hunting parties in search of ivory tusks migrated from North and North Central Nigeria to areas beyond the River Benue beginning from the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In 1898 hunters from Northern and North Central Nigeria, Lagos, Sierra Leone, and the Gold Coast were invited by Major Roupel, a British official, to Ogoja Province of Eastern Nigeria to hunt elephants. They duly obtained the necessary license from the colonial authority. From 1898 to 1904 the “great herds of elephant in Ogoja Province” became extinct from hunting. The end of elephant hunting saw the switch to the trade in horses and cattle. Second, Hausa soldiers of the colonial army operated in Eastern Nigeria but had no contact with the local people outside the battlefield. In 1905 more native strangers from Northern Nigeria were encouraged to visit Eastern Nigeria in the hope that their higher civilization, deriving from “their superior form of religion” and their willingness “to carry out the wishes of the government” might rob off on the indigenous peoples of Eastern Nigeria. Third, the nature of Igbo–Hausa interactions was determined by the “native-settler” identities created by British officials. Settler communities in Eastern Nigeria were very fluid even beyond the 1920s. Until 1920 Eastern Nigeria witnessed only the individual and sporadic migration of Muslims into its territory. It was by no means subjected to any activity suggestive of a spread of Islam and resulting in the form of conversions or the development of Islamic infrastructures and institutions anywhere in that region. The next chapter will consider the emergence of Islam in the Igbo homeland of Eastern Nigeria in the 1930s.

186 Ukagwu, “The Development of the Cattle Trade,” 99. 187 Ibid., 146-47. 72

CHAPTER 2 THE BEGINNINGS OF ISLAM IN IGBOLAND, 1920–1950

“If you go to Ibagwa they will tell you that it is the first place Islam came to. When you meet people from Eluagu Obukpa, they will tell you this is the first place Islam came to. I do not know if these claims are political. You also come to Enugu Ezike they will tell you this is the first place. Remember that at that time there was little communication between groups… You cannot actually say it started here or there but we know that these village groups are very close to each other… What we also know is that the first place Islam came to was 188 Nsukka Division because of its closeness to Northern Nigeria.” Islam was first acknowledged in the Nsukka area of northern Igboland. This is the closest part of Eastern Nigeria to North Central Nigeria and became important thereafter as the place where “Islamic influence in Igboland first began to 189 be felt.” A number of Igbo Muslim interviewees were of the opinion that Islam was extended to Nsukka Division in the nineteenth century. Some suggested that this happened in the eighteenth century through the agency of Hausa Muslim traders. In 2003 Sheikh Idoko reports: Islam came to Nsukka area around the eighteenth century. That was before the arrival of Europeans or Christian missionaries. The people they came into contact with belonged to the Igbo religion. Those who came with this noble message of Allah came for trade or Sufism. Certainly that was not primarily aimed at propagation. It was by coincidence that people who had dealings with them embraced Islam. Because they were not so eager to propagate Islam, the spirit of religious 190 propagation was lost with them. Persons who claimed an early date for Islam in Igboland were influenced by the 191 writings of Abdurrahman Doi. Doi theorized that the proximity of Nsukka to 188 Sheikh Adam Idoko, chief imam of University of Nigeria, Nsukka, mosque and president of the League of Islamic Scholars and Missionaries of Eastern Nigeria, interview, Nsukka, May 2003. 189 Abdurrahman Doi, Islam in Nigeria (Zaria: Gaskiya Corporation, 1984), 169. 190 Sheikh Idoko, interview cited. These same remarks were published in “Islamic Propagation Activities in Eastern Nigeria,” Muslim Newsforum, December 1998, p. 7. 191 I observed in the course of fieldwork that the claims made by Igbo and non-Igbo Mus73

Igala and Idoma and to the trade routes that traversed these areas in the nineteenth century (in addition to the trade interactions of Nsukka Igbo with these neighbors) made possible the introduction of Islam in Nsukka Division by Nupe 192 and Hausa traders. Our investigation in the previous chapter does not authenticate the possibility of the introduction of Islam in Eastern Nigeria in the eighteenth or nineteenth century. Doi’s claim and similar others dealing with the introduction of Islam in Igboland and therefore in Eastern Nigeria would be examined here.

Fig. 10: Old Nsukka Division In a sixteen-page article based on personal observations and inquiries made in the mid 1960s and after, Doi discussed Islam in Igboland concentrating on the beginnings of Islamic influence in Igboland, the arrival of Christian missions, the beginning of regular Islamic activities, and the “Emergence of Islam 193 towards the End of the Civil War.” His very informative and honest account lims of Islam beginning earlier than was historically factual have their origin on Doi’s writing. Sheikh Idoko referred me to Doi’s work as proof of their assertion. Doi’s claims of a nineteenth century date for the beginning of Islam in Nsukka Division in particular and Southeast Nigeria in general is not substantiated by written, oral, and archival records. 192 Doi depended completely on the introductory remarks of Shelton for the statement on trade routes that traversed Nsukka Division. See A. Shelton, The Igbo–Igala Borderland: Religion and Social Control in Indigenous African Colonialism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1971), 3-4. 193 Doi, Islam in Nigeria, 168-184. This sub-heading in itself tells clearly the period when Islam emerged as an identifiable religion in Southeast Nigeria. 74

of the emerging community of indigenous Muslims from the Nsukka area is marred by an attempt to credit an earlier date to Islam than was factually and historically appropriate. In his opening paragraphs, tracing the progress of the spread of Islam from Yorubaland in Western Nigeria, Doi observes that after Islam entered parts of the Midwest from Yorubaland “Islam did not make any headway further beyond the Niger in the Igbo-speaking area.” He gave the reasons for the non-extension into Igboland and Southeast Nigeria as follows: When the Christian missionary activities began in Nigeria, the areas beyond the Niger became their strongholds. The Christian missionaries were not allowed to expand their activities in the predominantly Muslim north… Southern Nigeria beyond Yoruba country offered immense opportunities to Christian missionaries where they could open 194 new centres without any restrictions whatsoever. With this accurate entry, Doi narrows down to the beginning of Islam in East Central State of Nigeria, the Igbo homeland. Utilizing interviews with “some 195 Hausa-Fulani, Nupe and Yoruba Muslims having Ibo wives,” he reports: Approximately one hundred miles long by forty miles wide, Nsukka division encompasses important trade routes which have increased contacts between Nsukka Ibos and other peoples to the north, east and west. It was from these trade routes that Islam began to penetrate through the traders… Islam first started in Iboland in the Ibo-Eze division near Nsukka and the first place where a substantial number of Muslims settled, practiced Islamic teachings, built mosques was Ibagwa-Nkwo, only five miles from Nsukka. The Igala Muslims came to this area …The HausaFulanis and Nupe Muslims had established trade contacts with these areas much earlier than this, but the Fulani Jihad of Shehu Uthman dan Fodio gave them greater enthusiasm to spread Islam. Thus Islam began to influence the Ibos in this area in the 19th century although very few Ibos accepted Islam in the early days and it did not spread any further in Iboland.

194 Ibid., 168. 195 Ibid., 169-170 75

In the first two sentences Doi postulates that important trade routes increased contacts between the Nsukka Igbo (erroneously called “Nsukka Ibos” by Doi) and other peoples to the north, east, and west. These were remarks lifted directly from Shelton with the exception of the statement “It was from these trade routes that Islam began to penetrate through the traders,” being Doi’s own ad196 dition to Shelton’s.

Fig. 11: Shelton’s illustration of the trade routes that connected Nsukka with her neighbors Shelton’s illustrations of those trade routes (and of “alien influences on Nsukka”) and his elucidation of both is unambiguous as to his reference to Igala and Idoma lands and certainly not beyond the natural boundary created by 196 A. Shelton, The Igbo–Igala Borderland, 3-4. 76

the Benue River upwards to Hausaland as Doi would have us believe. In effect those trade routes connected Nsukka Igbo with Igalaland and Idomaland, ancient neighbors and trading partners of the Igbo. These ethnic groups in North Central Nigeria were not Islamized before or during the colonial period, as Shelton and other scholars clearly observed, and therefore could not have been avenues through which Nsukka Igbo contracted Islam in the nineteenth century as Doi postulated; or earlier as others who followed Doi’s reasoning had indicated. Besides, the presence of important trade routes connecting Nsukka to the outside world is not enough in itself as a basis for a claim that those networks brought, in addition to material goods, the Islamic religion. Ubah who treats in detail British government’s complicity in fostering the Islamization of non-Muslim groups during the colonial era by imposing on them Hausa or Fulani Muslim district heads, Islamic courts, and Muslim judges, reports also on the British colonial policy from 1931 to 1934 that aimed at reversing the spread of Islam among non-Muslim groups. His observations show that North Central Nigeria was unaffected by the indirect extension of Islam to non-Muslim groups via British Indirect Rule system: The real beneficiaries from the new policy were the people of the Nigerian Middle Belt in the then Benue, Kabba, and Plateau provinces. In these provinces there were no big emirs whose prestige and influence among non-Muslims had to be protected. Islam and the Hausa language still had some chance to spread, but this was in the normal process of social and economic interaction. The people were not sub197 jected to them by formal institutional structures. Doi’s study would have been richer and would have filled an important gap in our knowledge of the spread of Islam in Igboland and in Southeast Nigeria if Doi had incorporated among his interviewees Igbo indigenes, including community elders and leaders, to balance the reports received from his Hausa-Fulani, Nupe, and Yoruba Muslim interviewees whose choice as qualified custodians of Igbo local history appears to be hinged on the fact that they had “Ibo wives.” One important point worth mentioning is that Doi’s observation of 197 C. N. Ubah, “Colonial Administration and the spread of Islam in Northern Nigeria,” The Muslim World 81 (2) 1991, 148. Ubah argues that the phenomenon of Muslim district heads, Islamic courts, and exposure to such courts, eclipsed local political leadership and undermined the indigenous legal system of non-Muslim groups. When this became obvious to Donald Cameron, the British colonial governor of Nigeria (19311934), the policy was reappraised and changes were initiated where possible. 77

contacts between Nsukka Igbo and peoples north of them should be situated in time. Although Doi made no attempt to date his story, the interaction of Nsukka Igbo with Nupe and Hausa migrants speak of the period from the 1930s onwards, by which time remarkable results had begun to be observed with respect to the construction of roads, railways, and bridges that connected Igboland, and not just Nsukka Division, with parts of Nigeria far removed from them, and resulting in increased communication between Igbo communities and ethnic groups in Northern Nigeria. This is the development that justifies Doi’s statement: “It was from these trade routes that Islam began to penetrate 198 through the traders.” Nonetheless, it should be accurately dated to its time of occurrence in the second quarter of the twentieth century and not earlier. Since Doi’s conclusion that Islam began to influence the Igbo of Nsukka Division in the nineteenth century challenges the historical account of the development of Islam in Igboland, we will engage with his assumptions further. Hausa presence in Igboland before 1900, as shown in the previous chapter, was indeed rare or nonexistent in spite of the closeness of northern Igboland to North-Central and Northern Nigeria. Evidence of this already exists for Igbo groups in Ogoja province, on an analogous location as the Nsukka Igbo, whom as Ottenberg shows had no close contact with persons of Northern Nigeria ori199 gin before 1920. Grove provides insights that could help us here from his study of the economic value of the Benue Valley of North Central Nigeria; an area that was scarcely populated right into 1950. The Benue Valley has on its borders Lokoja, Abuja, Jos, Gombe, Mumbi, Bamenda, and Gboko. Outside its borders are found Nupeland, Hausaland, and other ethnic groups of Northern Nigeria. In other words, the Benue Valley encompassed Tivland, parts of Igala, Nassarawa, Keffi, among others, whose inhabitants Grove in 1956 described as “pagan 200 peoples.” He records that after the forceful entrance by the Fulani into North Central Nigeria in the early nineteenth century, “their power extended over most of the country north of the river [Benue], with the exception of the hill 201 country to which the pagan peoples retired.” To Grove, the confinement of the Fulani to areas beyond the river Benue and above the pagan communities was blamed on the following: 198 Doi, Islam in Nigeria, 169. 199 Ottenberg, Farmers and Townspeople, 64-65. 200 A. T. Grove, The Benue Valley (Kaduna: Ministry of National Resources, Northern Nigeria, 1956), 8.

201 Ibid. 78

Much of the Benue Valley especially near streams in the west is infected with tse-tse fly throughout the year. Other areas are not attractive to cattle herds on account of other diseases, poverty of grazing and lack of water… There has been some long distance trading over established routes all in the North. The ivory from Ngaundere passed through Yola to the northwest… The rivers of the Benue valley are a hindrance rather than a help to communication, and the valley is not 202 bound together as an economic unit linked by its rivers. In other words, the geographical hostility of North Central Nigeria and the Benue Valley in particular to horses and cattle kept Fulani warriors and cattle herders away for so long. If early in the twentieth century Hausa presence was rare within this southern periphery of North Central Nigeria, it logically follows that it was also rare in Nsukka Division of northern Igboland, located 203 south of this region. Doi’s claim that Islam began to influence the Igbo in the nineteenth century contradicts his initial remark that Islam made no headway into Igbo-speaking areas unless it is to be understood that he was referring solely to Islam spreading from the direction of Yorubaland in Western Nigeria and not from North Central Nigeria. However, his last statement in the first quote that “Southern Nigeria beyond Yoruba country offered immense opportunities to Christian missionaries where they could open new centers without any restrictions” would also suggest that Islamic influence in this area was nonexistent and that was the reason why Christian missions were allowed to operate freely in “Southern Nigeria beyond Yoruba country”—where the Igbo, Efik, Ibibio, Ijaw, and Ekoi homelands are situated. There is no confusion indeed that Islam was a twentieth century phenomenon in Eastern Nigeria including in Nsukka Division of northern Igboland regardless of Doi’s assertion now being echoed by Igbo and non-Igbo Muslims. Furthermore, the emergence of Islam in Igalaland was as much a twentieth 202 Ibid., 13, 16-17. Grove’s description of the waterways of the Benue River being a hindrance rather than a help to communication is striking. It shows that the Benue River separated the peoples of the area from each other. 203 Owerri and Calabar Provinces of Eastern Nigeria also fall within the natural habitat for tse-tse fly. Consequently, the long-horned and humped cattle from Northern Nigeria could not be reared in Eastern Nigeria, but the Muturu, the short-horned, humpless variety, indigenous to the region and resistant to trypanosomiasis. Mabel Ukagwu, “The Development of Cattle Trade in Imo State with Special Reference to Umuahia-Ibeku up to 1960.” M. A. Dissertation, University of Nigeria (1987), 3. 79

century development just as in Igboland and therefore there could not have been considerable numbers of Igala Muslims living in Ibagwa nkwo near Nsukka or elsewhere in Igboland prior to and shortly after the jihad wars of the nineteenth century for Igala was decidedly “pagan” by this date. Igala dominance of Nsukka area and also of the area around the Anambra River before the nineteenth century is factual. This incident nonetheless provided no avenue for introducing Islam to these areas in Igboland even remotely. When Igala control of Nsukka Division began to decline in the nineteenth century it gave room for the rise, not of Hausa or Nupe influence through trade or any other means but 204 of Aro domination. One question for Doi is, if Igala hegemony as he postulates was partly responsible for Islam in Nsukka Division why did it not replicate same effect on communities around the Anambra River that were also under Igala control within the same point in time as the Nsukka area? A good example is the Onitsha Igbo who trace their origin to Igala and the Edo who oc205 cupy land owned originally by the Igala. Forde, Laura and Paul Bohannan, and Armstrong, using previous accounts by scholars such as Nadel (1942) and personal investigations from 1949 to 1953, had mentioned that Igbo traders visited markets in territories belonging to Ig206 ala, Idoma, and Tiv early in the twentieth century. Armstrong’s study of Ig204 Nwando Achebe, Farmers, Traders, Warriors, and Kings: Female Power and Authority in Northern Igboland, 1900–1960 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2005), 32-33; Kenneth Dike and Felicia Ekejiuba, The Aro of South-eastern Nigeria, 1650–1980 (Ibadan: University Press, 1990), 96-121. 205 Let us review some additional records here: John Lander’s travels, and, Samuel Crowther’s in the company of McGregor Laird, are of particular relevance. Armstrong records Lander’s observation of seeing a Hausa in Igbo territory in 1830, precisely in the kingdom of Aboh, west of the river Niger and therefore outside the Southeast. Meanwhile, Doi already showed that the trajectory of Islam stopped short of the Igbo territory found beyond Yorubaland. So, even if a Hausa was noticed in Igbo territory, west of the Niger, it is not a pointer to a probable spread of Islam in Igbo territory in the nineteenth century, the 1800s. On his part, Crowther wrote of an event that occurred close to northern Igboland: of hearing Igbo spoken in markets at the confluence of the Rivers Benue and Niger, in 1855, by actors whose identity was unknown. That isolated event also does not warrant the interpretation that close trade contacts existed between Igbo, including Nsukka Igbo, with traders of Northern Nigeria origin or that Islam came into Igboland from that trade contact. Samuel Crowther, Journal of an expedition up the Niger and Tshadda Rivers…in 1854 (London: Church Missionary House), 167. 206 Daryll Forde, “The Nupe,” in Daryll Forde (ed.), Peoples of the Niger-Benue Confluence (London: International African Institute, 1955); Laura and Paul Bohannan, The Tiv of Central Nigeria (London: International African Institute, 1953); R. G. Armstrong, “The Idoma–Speaking Peoples,” and “The Igala” in Daryll Forde, ed., Peoples of the Niger–Benue Confluence. 80

Fig. 12: Nsukka Local Government Area, 1986

207

ala and Idoma-speaking peoples indicates that Igbo language was almost a local language in Idoma. He reports with respect to Igala that “since a great deal of trade and transport is in Igbo hands, knowledge of Igbo would doubtlessly 208 carry one a long way in Igala.” The periodicity of these events should not be ignored. In contrast to the ubiquity of Igbo traders in these areas, we lack similar references to Nupe and Hausa traders in Igbo territory even though Armstrong, the Bohannans, and Forde show that traders of Nupe origin operated 209 closer to Igboland, precisely in Igala and Idoma markets, than Hausa traders. Their observation is corroborated by oral testimony in Nsukka Division, which informs that the trading operations of the Nupe within Nsukka Division began 210 from 1909 and depended on middlemen. Trade via the medium of middlemen was not the preserve of Nupe migrants to Igboland. When the Yoruba and the Hausa entered the Igbo homeland they resorted to the same old practice. In their trade on rubber, palm oil, and kernels 207 The Old Nsukka Division was split, in 1986, into seven Local Government Areas with Nsukka Local Government at the centre.

208 R. G. Armstrong, “The Idoma–Speaking Peoples,” 92; R. G. Armstrong, “The Igala,” 79. 209 Armstrong, “The Igala,” 82, and “The Idoma,” 99. Daryll Forde, “The Nupe,” 27-28. 210 Alhaji Mutalib and Dauda Ojobe, interviews, Ibagwa and Enugu Ezike, May 2003. 81

in Nsukka Division Yoruba traders utilized middlemen just as the Hausa did with respect to the cattle trade, which was at its early stages in Eastern Nigeria 211 around 1919. The development of middlemen in different trade goods and markets was not unconnected with the determination to maintain ethnic spheres of influence. The different ethnic groups did their best to protect their trades or trade interests by blocking stranger traders from having direct access to 212 owners of goods and from getting into a particular line of business. It was not likely, unless it can be proven otherwise, that communities in northern Igboland where Yoruba and Nupe Muslim traders established a couple of settlements in 1916 and 1918 interacted very closely and openly with Muslim settlers before the twentieth century. My Yoruba interviewees, descendants of early 213 Yoruba migrants to Ibagwa, disclosed that that was not so. The pattern of minimal interaction that existed in Calabar and Cross River Divisions in the Eastern Province as recorded in the previous chapter was replicated in the Nsukka village groups of Onitsha Division in the Central Province until the late 1920s. Putting all together, Doi’s assertion on the beginning of Islam in Nsukka Division and in Southeast Nigeria is historically not factual.

The Case of Enugu Ezike The main figure connected with the introduction of Islam into Nsukka Division was Ibrahim Aduku, a horse trader well known by his last name Aduku. Some myths have developed around Aduku with some alleging that militarily and with superior weapons he conquered Enugu Ezike and its thirty-three villages, settled there against the wishes of the indigenes, and became their Eze or 214 ruler. Aduku is the earliest and most remembered horse trader in the environs of Nsukka. He started visiting Enugu Ezike “around the time the British station (outpost) was established in the town,” observed his grandson. Garba Oheme of Enugu Ezike, reputed by Igbo Muslims as the oldest Igbo to convert to Islam and who, according to his testimony reverted to Islam in 1937 while at 211 See Ottenberg, Farmers and Townspeople, 64, and Ukagwu, “The Development of Cattle Trade,” chapter 4.

212 Interviews with Alhaji Mutalib, Dauda Ojobe, and Papa Garba Oheme. Also, Robert Launay, “An Invisible Religion? Anthropology’s Avoidance of Islam in Africa,” in Mwenda Ntarangwi, David Mills, and Mustapha Babiker (eds.), African Anthropologies: History, Critique and Practice (London: Zed Books, 2005), 195-196. 213 Alhaji Mutalib, interview cited. 214 Adam Usman, interview, Nsukka, May 2003. Enugu Ezike is in Igboeze North Local Government Area. 82

Calabar at the age of twenty-nine, told of another horse trader who preceded Aduku but was seemingly overshadowed by the latter perhaps because of the strategic time in history when Aduku appeared in Enugu Ezike. In the dialogue below Oheme recounted the story of the two horse traders: 215

Ndi ocha [white men] came to Hausaland and disorganized their lives. Many of them because of the wars of subjugation dispersed and moved southwards, reaching this far south. As my father told me and as this very person told me, he was the first man to come to this place. His name was Usman Buzu. He came on a horse as he fled the wars in 216 Northern Nigeria. He came from Utege, a town close to Keffi (Plateau state) and moved to Angba and from Angba he came to Enugu Ezike. The ruler of Angba (in Igalaland) at this time was Abutaji. Usman was a horse trader. In his journeys southwards away from the colonial wars he met people needing horses so they started doing business. For instance, he will buy horses and bring to sell to those needing it. … He sold horses for a while before Aduku came… 217

Dauda: Was he here before Aduku? The story says Aduku was the first. Oheme: Bring the Qur’an and I will swear on it. Usman was here before Aduku. He first started selling horses before Aduku came to this 218 town and began his own business. 215 Hausaland is commonly used by Igbo indigenes to refer to the whole of Northern Nigeria and not exactly to Hausaland alone. Such usage is evident in this account. 216 Utege could not be located, but Keffi is in Plateau State in North-Central Nigeria. 217 Dauda Ojobe, the local historian, accompanied me on this visit. He reverted to Islam in 1971 and was the second oldest Muslim convert in Amufie. 218 Garba Oheme, interview cited. Sheikh Saliu Abugu, the son was present, helping with interpretation when necessary. The horse trade between Enugu Ezike and Igala began prior to Aduku’s arrival in the town and probably even before Usman Buzu brought horses to sell there. The initial pattern was for individuals, or their contracted traders, to visit Ejule in Igalaland in whose markets they purchased horses, and dragged them home. The interviewees who spoke about the horse trade observed that these events were happening when “the influence of the colonial administration had been felt,” suggesting that the horse trade in Enugu Ezike could have commenced later than similar trade in Abakaliki Division of Ogoja Province, and in Awgu of Onitsha Province. Ojobe, Barrister Hamza Aduku, Garba Oheme, and Alhaji Umaru, all from Enugu Ezike, dated the horse trade to the colonial era. Ottenberg shows that in Abakaliki the horse trade preceded the British who tried to stop it because of their fondness for the animals. 83

Usman Buzu could have been the first horse trader to do business in Enugu Ezike after the coming of the British, the specific date unknown except to situate it between 1900 and 1905 when Hausaland and other parts of the Sokoto Caliphate were militarily subdued causing waves of migrations southwards and outside Nigeria. Buzu obviously remained an itinerant trader for the entire duration of his brief career in Enugu Ezike. His connections, if he had any, to Aduku are unknown. Aduku, as generally accepted, came later and operated longer in the town. His coming coincided also with the time the Roman Catholic Mission and Church Missionary Society were trying to establish primary schools in the Nsukka area. In fact a handful of locals in the environs of Enugu 219 Ezike had accepted the Catholic faith by the time of his visit. Nevertheless, Enugu Ezike itself had not been appreciably infiltrated by Christian missions to boast of any convert then, it seemed. Hamza, a grandson of Aduku, recalled that his father told them that their grandfather’s visit corresponded with the British incursion with a patrol of African soldiers drawn largely from Northern and Western Nigeria. The identity of the soldiers, observed Hamza, was ascertained from the dialogue that ensued between their grandfather and the soldiers. Hamza recounted as follows: Aduku was originally from Bida… He was born at Bida and grew up at Bida but his mother lived at Idah in Igalaland… Idah people were not Muslims. They believed in spirits and things like that. So in the beginning, at Idah, he was trading, coming through Bida and Idah with his horses. He traded on horses... Whenever he visited Enugu Ezike he stayed with the family of Agboke Nwoma. Up till the present our family had retained close links with them… The story had it that during one of the times he was here the British outpost came through Okwoga in Northern Nigeria and entered Enugu Ezike, which had never seen a whiteman and did not know the whiteman’s way. The story also had it that because of his trading and other activities, he probably knew the white people; he had had contact with them … My grandfather was not part of the incursion but was here when it happened...Invariably one thing led to the other. The people developed confidence in him to intervene in the new setting. He became a gobetween for our community and the white strangers. Through that he 219 Alhaji Umaru, interview, Enugu Ezike, January 2004. See “List of county Grant-aided School,” File: NS DIV 12/1/137, National Archives Enugu. And D. Opata, J. Ozioko and C. Eze (eds.), Nsukka: Development Challenges (Nsukka: Adada Investment Ltd, 1997), 149. 84

was given a warrant … Our people wanted to make sure that having received the warrant he would act in utmost good faith. He was given an option of becoming a full citizen … You may be wondering what the language of communication was. Nigerians in the incursion were either Hausa or Yoruba. It was easy for him to communicate with 220 them. He spoke Nupe, Hausa, and Igala languages. The story of Aduku is a rather lengthy one and relatively well known in Enugu Ezike and especially in the village of Amufie into which he naturalized. I have used the accounts of Hamza and Dauda for this reconstruction, taking note where necessary of other view points. When the colonial troops arrived and bombarded Enugu Ezike, the people were considerably surprised and intimidated. The first casualty from this engagement was a woman named Nweyeoli. Dauda gave details of the encounter from the time of the death of Nweyeoli: So when this happened, people of Ajie … went home to raise an alarm that people of a different color were around and killing people… The gunfire caused tension in Enugu Ezike. One man remembered Agboke Nwaoma. He had seen a stranger who had visited him. They decided 221 to tell him what happened to know what they would do… Dauda and Hamza’s accounts both agreed that the town elders eventually sent Aduku to find out what the “visitors” wanted, which Aduku did. The British officers invited the people through Aduku to meet with them but the elders (onyishi) of Amufie requested Aduku to meet with them on their behalf. Eventually, Aduku was prevailed upon to settle in the village with an offer of a settlement close to a market made by the elders of Amufie. Dauda continued: So when he settled, people from Yagba in the Nupe area and places that had already been subdued started migrating to Enugu Ezike and they were Muslims. This was how Muslims started coming to Enugu Ezike. Casting our minds back to the accounts by Hamza and Dauda, a few things are obvious. Aduku’s visit to Enugu Ezike did not precede the British. If Aduku was the person who introduced Islam into Enugu Ezike and thus into the Nsukka area, he certainly did not do that before the twentieth century. Hamza 220 Barrister Hamza Aduku, interview cited 221 Dauda Ojobe, interview cited. Note also his assumption that the trader from above the River Benue was Hausa, although in reality he was of Nupe–Igala origin. 85

said of his grandfather “he had had contact with them,” referring to the British, and “My grandfather was not part of the incursion but was here when it happened.” The degree of familiarity between Nsukka Igbo with the Hausa as a people or of Islam before the twentieth century, as some would have us believe, is called into question by the fact that the patrol which first came to Enugu Ezike and comprised mostly of Hausa and Yoruba soldiers under the command of British personnel considerably surprised the people. Long contact with persons from Northern Nigeria would have meant that the persons from Enugu Ezike would have identified Hausa elements in the patrol that advanced into Enugu Ezike from Okwoga (actual name Okpoga). It is also to be expected that they would have been aware through their supposed Hausa contacts and trade associates of happenings elsewhere or been informed by their own local intelligence of the conquests and patrols going on in the North Central Nigeria, certainly very close to them. No such pre-knowledge of danger came from these angles suggesting indeed that no contact with the Hausa existed by this date. Such privileged intelligence if received would have helped minimize the distress in Enugu Ezike at their first contact with a foreign colonizing power and the people of Amufie would not have refused ever meeting with the “white men” as they did preferring instead that a thorough stranger do so on their behalf. Aduku’s trade with Enugu Ezike through Agboke Nwaoma of Amufie is not by any means being denied. However, weighing all that was supposed to have occurred in Enugu Ezike from around 1905 until 1919, it appears that direct trade interactions between Muslim traders whether from Nupe, Hausaland, or any other group in Nigeria on one hand and the Igbo of Nsukka Division on the other was not the common practice that Doi and a few local imams had suggested. There is some contention on the exact date of Aduku’s arrival in Enugu Ezike. Aduku’s grandson, Hamza, had suggested 1906 as both the date of his grandfather’s visit and the British military incursion into Enugu Ezike. Mallam Usman Omada, also from Enugu Ezike, is of the view that Aduku came during the influenza pandemic that diffused from Europe to Africa between 1918 and 1919, being the concluding years of World War I. The pandemic was an unforgettable disaster in the records of the Nsukka Igbo who called it okija, as it also 222 was in other parts of Igboland and beyond. Dauda had asserted in an interview: 222 Mallam Omada, interview, Enugu Ezike, January 2004. For more information on the pandemic in selected parts of Nigeria see Don Ohadike, Anioma: A Social History of the Western Igbo People (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1994), 198-204. 86

Islam started in Enugu Ezike in 1914… It came through the influence of Aduku who came from Nupe. He settled in Enugu Ezike. There was no other religion in the town then except the traditional religion. When he came in 1914, he introduced Islam… Eventually, Islam spread in Enugu Ezike. But because of our love for drinking people did not embrace it as they did the Anglican religion that came in 1933. Note that Dauda linked Islam in Enugu Ezike to the date of Aduku’s arrival in the town and not to the time that Islam gained its first convert from that area. In terms of periodicity, the colonial advance into Enugu Ezike occurred in 1909 according to the following entry in the colonial records: “From January 1909 when the town was first visited until 1920 Enugu Ezike was a scene of constant 223 military and police patrols.” Shelton dates the British colonial incursion into Nsukka Division to 1910, correctly observing that effective colonization of the 224 Nsukka Igbo occurred in 1920. I have adopted 1909 as the date of the earliest invasion based on the intelligence report on the event. If Usman Buzu preceded Aduku, coming shortly after the disturbances in Northern Nigeria; and Aduku, equally displaced by the same incident but operating for a while at Idah prior to moving southwards into Enugu Ezike, it would be assumed that he could not have started visiting Enugu Ezike before 1909. What is more, at the time of the British incursion Aduku’s association was limited to Agboke Nwaoma, his initial business associate. Aduku, it should be remembered, spoke no Igbo but communicated in Igala, which though known by some in Enugu Ezike was still not the general language in use in the town. If Aduku had been in contact with the people for any considerable length of time, he would have been able to speak some Igbo by the time of the British incursion. This is a clear indication of how recent his operations in this area were previous to the British colonial invasion of Enugu Ezike. The aspect of the story that mentioned Aduku settling down in Amufie does not imply that the action occurred straight away after the British patrol. Hamza’s clarification in the following dialogue is informative: Question: Since your grandfather was from Bida how was he able to communicate with the people? Answer: He spoke Igala…. Some families in Enugu Ezike were origin223 Mr. V. K. Johnson, “Intelligence report on the people of Enugu Ezike, Nsukka Division,” File OP 1071/ ONDIST 12/1/709 (October 1934), National Archives, Enugu.

224 Shelton, The Igbo-Igala Borderland, 27. 87

ally from Igala … Even if it was adulterated Igala, it was still easy to comprehend … At a particular point the question of his naturalization came in because he was now given the warrant and he became the intermediary between the colonial representative and the people. The British began to develop an administration using the local people as warrant chiefs. Mr. V. K. Johnson, the Assistant District Officer, wrote in his Intelligence Report of 1932: “From existing records, it appears that Enugu Ezike was first visited in January 1909 and from that year until 1920 was the scene of constant military and police patrols. … In October 1918 the Native Court of Enugu Ezike was formed, the principal court members being Aduku, an ambitious and powerful Nupe, Ayiogu Ede brother of the Atama Uguaka of Amube, and 225 Ahebe of Umuida, a female of strong Igala tendencies.” Aduku’s settlement in Enugu Ezike would therefore have occurred at anytime close to when he was put forward for the warrant, and this was in 1918 (the year of the outbreak 226 of the influenza pandemic.) Hamza’s remark “the issue of naturalization came in because he was now given the warrant” was also clear on the timing of this incident. With respect to Enugu Ezike, however, the invitation to a foreigner by the Amufie community to settle among the indigenes was first suggested and followed up by the village elders for their own good in contrast to the pattern observed in other parts of the region where the move to settle was championed by northern migrants for purely economic gains or by the British on behalf of northern migrants in their attempt to open up the Southeast to trade and to civ227 ilize its “natives” as they called them. Mallam Omada’s date for Aduku’s arrival in Enugu Ezuke is supported by Mr. Johnson’s report. It corresponded 225 Mr. V. K. Johnson, “Intelligence report on the people of Enugu Ezike.” 226 It is also probable that 1918 could have been the year he came to Enugu Ezike in the first place just as observed by Usman Omada in his account of Aduku.

227 Prior to the emergence of the colonial state, the peoples of the country categorised each other on language basis. Categorisations based on regional locations, and later on religious affiliations, were a colonial development. It waited until the complete delineation of the country and the development of British administration, which in some places, like Abakaliki, took longer than in others. Nigeria did not become a political unit until the 1914 amalgamation. Moreover, up till the mid-1920s the Southeast, in particular, was in turmoil from insurgences against British conquest, and military operations aimed at “pacification” of the conquered peoples. As such, Aduku’s identity as a northerner could not have been conceived this early in his dealings with the people of Enugu Ezike. 88

with both the time Aduku’s trade activities became reasonably established in the town and when he earned the confidence of the town’s leadership causing 228 their recommending him to British colonial administration for the warrant. When Aduku yielded to the wishes of Amufie community and subjected himself to the prescribed process of assuming local citizenship leading to his becoming an indigene of Enugu Ezike, his identity changed. His naturalization involved choosing one of the lineages as his father’s and another as his mother’s natal homes in line with the rule of exogamy observed in Igboland. Aduku chose Umuogodo as his father’s village and Amachara as his mother’s, both in Umu Itodo. Although up till the present some persons in that community regard him as a foreigner who settled and raised his family there, the testimony of his naturalization with the symbolic relics of the event situates him as a full indigene and no longer a foreigner. This event marks a turn in our discussion. Aduku should more appropriately be regarded as the first Muslim from Amufie in Enugu Ezike and not only the horse trader through whom, eventually, Islam was introduced in the community. What is more, it was after Aduku’s naturalization in 1918 that other local strangers from Nupe and elsewhere joined him in his new home, gradually building up a modest community of Muslim strangers of Nupe origin. Aduku remained an exception in this community of Muslim migrants as the only person of non-Igbo origin given full citizenship in the community. What indeed is important in these series of occurrences is that from the time Amufie adopted Aduku and vice versa, Amufie village in Enugu Ezike and 228 Putting forward persons for warrant in the early stage of the colonial experience was fraught with manipulations. There was no part of Eastern Nigeria where indigenes boldly identified their local leaders. Unsure of the plans of the invading power, as the British were regarded, communities all over put forward either slaves, “good-for-nothing” persons, and in a few cases non-indigenes for warrant. The colonial administrators were aware of this practice. With respect to the Ikwerre Igbo of Ahoada Division in Owerri Province, the District Officer observed: “The actual nature of pre-government organization has been often deliberately hidden by persons who had an interested motive in doing so.” He added “Few, if any, of these Warrant Chiefs were Ndi-Nwe-Ala [indigenes] of their village areas.” D.C. Ugwu (1987) reported about Obukpa, a town close to Enugu Ezike: “The British with the help of Nupe subdued Obukpa and introduced Indirect Rule, imposing chiefs of Nupe origin.” Just as Aduku was put forward for the warrant by the elders of Enugu Ezike, Mallam Dodo, a Hausa from Katsina, received the warrant for Elele an Igbo community close to Port Harcourt, but in this case at the instance of the colonial authorities, because he “had been of great service to Government in the early days,” explained the District Officer. To circumvent the refusal by the right candidates to take up the warrant, District Officers issued it to whoever was available. 89

northern Igboland on the whole became the cradle for Islam in Eastern Nigeria. In other words, Garba Oheme, the indigene celebrated as the first Muslim in the town and in Igboland who converted to Islam in 1937 in Calabar, has a dual status. He is the first indigenous convert and at the same time the second 229 Muslim from Nsukka Division. One group of interviewees had alleged that Aduku attempted to make converts of persons who came under his protection during his career as a warrant chief. Such persons comprised his in-laws and protégé but no specific example 230 was proffered to substantiate this view. If indeed Aduku had converts from Enugu Ezike those converts either reverted to their original religious status or never converted to Islam at all since no other convert was identified as preceding Garba Oheme. We gain some idea about Aduku’s agency in favor of Islam from his grandson: The institution that brought him and made him an Enugu Ezike indigene was a traditional institution but he told them that he would remain a Muslim. However, for political purposes and the necessity for naturalization, he subjected himself to traditional rituals… You can see what is happening to my family now. Everything that happens in Umuogodo, we take part in it… Our particular unit in Umuogodo is Umuogbuanyi. Every contribution we make to Amufie is through our unit… We encourage building bridges among us all by supporting traditional institutions where they do not offend social norms. Aduku’s grandson and other interviewees maintained that Aduku was committed more to his business than to proselytization. He did not publicly adopt the Igbo religion nor did he pursue the adoption of Islam by the people of Amufie, recalled his grandson who maintained that only few of his progenitors became Muslim: Most accounts of the past are deductive. When you look at the present you can interpret what happened to give shape to what we have presently. If Aduku was anti-Christian, he would not allow any of his 229 Before meeting Mallam Garba Oheme, I was severally informed by prominent Muslims in Igboland that he was the oldest Igbo convert from Southeast Nigeria. In testimony of his status as the first Igbo, convert Garba declared: “I joined Islam in 1937…Your research on Islam needs me. No person in Nsukka will tell you how it started. I am the first in Nsukka Division to join Islam.” 230 Hamza Aduku, Adam Usman, Abubakar Abugu, and Sayeed Suleiman, interviews, 2003. 90

children to join Christianity. If he was anti-traditional religion, he would not have had the kind of cooperation he had with the traditional institution. The institution that brought him and made him an 231 Enugu Ezike indigene was of a traditional setting … Aduku sent his sons to live with British colonial officers and gave every support to Christian missionaries in their proselytization of Enugu Ezike because 232 “he needed the cooperation of others.” The first mission school that opened in Amufie in 1930 was situated in his compound, only preceding his death by roughly a year. Aduku’s support for Christian missionaries was replicated by his contemporaries and was in reality urged of the warrant chiefs by the District Officer who also encouraged their embracing the religion and establishing 233 schools for reading, writing, and arithmetic. Aduku forged ties with various families in the town; sustaining his political ambition by marrying up to sixty 234 local women from all quarters of Enugu Ezike, as is remembered. Some of 235 these women were alleged to include other men’s wives. It was only in 1924 that Aduku built a family mosque. It was possible that between the time of Aduku’s arrival in 1918 and the construction of a family mosque in 1924, Aduku played down his religion or did not practice it at all until he felt secure enough in his new home to revive his original religious practice. By this time he had established adequate contacts in the town through his multiple marriages. What is not certain is how many of his wives acceded to Islam, adopting it as their own religion. If today majority of his descendants are Christians instead of Muslims, we may assume that few of his wives converted to Islam or that most who converted recanted after his death in 1931. The popularity of Garba Oheme as the first convert to Islam in Igboland could well mean that Aduku’s efforts in encouraging Islam in Enugu Ezike withered with his death. It is important to note that the chief imam of Enugu Ezike, Alhaji Ossai, dated conversions to Islam in Enugu Ezike to the 1930s but

231 Hamza Aduku. 232 Ibid. 233 R. Agbedo, “The Socio-Political and Economic Developments in Enugu Ezike during the Colonial Period,” B.A. project, University of Nigeria (1990).

234 What is not clear but probable about Aduku’s marriages is the extent to which they had to do with a misapplication of his authority as a warrant chief as was common with that generation of intermediate local rulers in the British Indirect Rule experiment. 235 Adam Usman, interview cited. 91

was uncertain of the year. Perhaps of relevance is the following extract on Enugu Ezike from a colonial report of 1934: Many of the men including quite young men wear beard and turban suggestive of Igala fashion. Despite northern influences their affinities are definitely Igbo and they are unwilling to consider any form of 236 northern administration. The influx of migrants from Nupe and Hausaland into northern Igboland do not seem to have been either high or regular in the first three decades of the twentieth century. From 1918 when Aduku received the warrant until the census of 1931 “stranger” elements in Enugu Ezike numbered only seventy-one (71). The breakdown was as follows: 23 adult males, 33 adult females, 4 non adult males and 8 non adult females. These strangers were identified as “a few Hausas, Nupes and Yorubas mostly at the village known as Amufie, who have 237 settled in the area for trading purposes.” Dauda Ojobe is among the interviewees from Enugu Ezike who identified factors that prevented widespread acceptance of Islam in the clan to include the religion’s prohibition of drinking for a people famed for their love of palm wine and the relative inefficacy of charms peddled by migrant Muslim traders in Enugu Ezike. The following remarks will be useful in understanding this second claim: Enugu Ezike holds the upper hand in this business. The difference between our native doctors and Muslim spiritualists is that the latter does not believe that it is necessary spilling animal blood and pouring it on an idol… For example, a Muslim will kill any kind of animal but he pours the blood on the ground and covers it after making his prayers. The belief is that the prayer goes directly to Allah and not through an intermediary. Coming to our town, because the people believe that if you kill the animal and spill the blood on an idol it becomes powerful, they therefore regard the imams’ procedure as inef238 fectual…

236 “Intelligence report on Enugu Ezike, Nsukka Division (1934),” File: OP 1071/ONDIST 12/1/709, National Archives, Enugu. 237 Ibid. 238 Dauda Ojobe, interview cited. 92

Islam in Ibagwa A neighboring village community in Nsukka Division contesting for prominence with Enugu Ezike as the birthplace of Islam in Igboland is Ibagwa, which has two sections—Ibagwa-aka and Ibagwa-ani. According to an elderly Igbo chief imam, Muslims from Bida brought Islam to Ibagwa-aka. It was the first place where Islam started in Nsukka. When traders from Bida entered Ibagwa, they settled there. Later, some moved to Ibagwa-ani. Ibagwa-aka and Ibagwa-ani were the first towns where Muslim traders from Bida settled. After Yoruba Muslims came followed by traders from Igala. 239 Each of these groups had their different settlements. Migrants from Bida in Nupeland preceded the Yoruba in Ibagwa-aka but more is known about the Yoruba migrants than the Nupe because descendants of Yoruba settlers living permanently in the town told how their ancestors migrated to Ibagwa for trade, settled, and raised families in the community. Nupe traders first arrived at Ibagwa-aka from where some later moved to Ibagwa-ani. The Nupe were joined in Ibagwa-aka by the Yoruba and later by Igala traders who were not identified as Muslims either by oral testimony or in the colonial reports. Traders from each of these ethnic groups settled around each other although in different quarters. Mallam Eze holds that Nupe traders came 240 to Ibagwa during World War I. For the Yoruba community, the earliest to arrive in Ibagwa was Baba Aridjo who came in 1918, followed in 1919 by Badamasi—my chief interviewee’s father; Kpukpola and Alfa Aminu—an Imam, and Alfa Buhari. Badamasi and Kpukpola came from Oshogbo now in Osun State. The others were from Ilorin in the present Kwara State. These traders migrated 241 to Ibagwa on foot. Although the horse trade brought the Yoruba to Ibagwa-aka, their attention later shifted to trade with European traders at Ogurugu to whom they supplied palm oil and rubber. The medium of exchange was pennies (ego anini). These migrant traders included among their European partners British traders stationed at Adada some miles away from Ibagwa as well as those at Nsukka town to whom also they sold rubber and palm oil. Their major trade goods—palm nuts and rubber—were bought from local producers and 239 Mallam Eze, interview cited. For Doi who theorized that the Igala migrants were Muslims, notice the silence on that from this remark. 240 Ibid. 241 Alhaji Mutalib, interview cited. 93

traders in Ibagwa to whom they sold hand-woven cloths (asoke) manufactured 242 in the environs of Lokoja in Yorubaland. When Mutalib, the son of Badamasi, was asked to date the time Ibagwa indigenes began to convert to Islam, he 243 answered: “Between 1937 and 1938 and not before then.” The second generation of Yoruba migrants found in Ibagwa-aka, majority of whom are Muslims, married multiple women of Yoruba and Igbo origins and raised many children. 244 The Yoruba population in 2003 was assumed to stand at around 150 persons. Mutalib who had three wives—one from Oshun State and two from Ibagwa— counted thirty persons as belonging to his household. It is likely that the current Yoruba community in Ibagwa may come close to the number claimed. Other strangers from North Central and Northern Nigeria mentioned in connection with the coming of Islam in Nsukka Division were Chief Momoh who was alleged to have migrated on the invitation of Aduku of Enugu Ezike and who operated also as a horse trader, eventually settling at Ovoko. Ochiaba and Mallam Ali, also traders supposedly from Bida and Aguji both in Nupe, 245 settled at Eteh and Obukpa respectively. The exact dates of the arrival of these traders in Nsukka Division are unknown but evidence suggests that they came after Aduku. Colonial records, however, indicate that Momoh and Ochia246 ba received warrants. Ochiaba, already “too old and infirm to be of much use,” according to colonial report, was a court member at Eteh from 1919 until 247 he “handed in his warrant in January 1923”. 242 For more on British encouragement of cotton growing and production of cotton goods

243 244 245 246

247

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in Lokoja and other parts of Northern Nigeria, see E. O. Egbo, “Northern Nigeria Cotton for Lancashire, 1902–1913,” Nsukka Journal of History (December 1989), 134-150. Alhaji Mutalib, interview cited. See, Abdulrazaq Kilani, Minaret in the Delta (Lagos: Global Dawah Communications, 2008), 267. Ibid. Sheikh Idoko and Imam Omeh Musa, interviews cited. Imam Omeh added that Ochiaba joined Aduku at Enugu Ezike. Ochiaba was not a warrant chief at Enugu Ezike and his name was not reflected in the list of warrant chiefs prepared by Mr. V. K. Johnson, the Assistant District Officer for Enugu Ezike, dated October 1934, but for Eteh clan from 1919 to 1923. See, “Intelligence Report on the People of Enugu Ezike,” File: OP 1071/ONDIST 12/1/709 (Oct 1934), National Archives, Enugu; and “Intelligence Report on Eteh Clan, Nsukka Division, Onitsha Province,” File: EP 9262a/CSE 1/85/4782, National Archives, Enugu. Further investigation is necessary in establishing the real identity of Ochiaba because he was not listed as a stranger in the colonial records, only acclaimed as such by interviewees. “Intelligence Report on Eteh Clan.” Oral tradition from Eteh claims that Eteh’s ancestor was born to an Igala father and his Igbo wife from Nguru. He first lived with his mother’s people and eventually settled close to Enugu Ezike. During the 1919 reorganiza-

Indigenes of Nsukka Division began to embrace Islam from the mid 1930s. A 1935-6 date could be given for Enugu Ezike and Obukpa village groups to accommodate possible influences from Aduku although the only known evidence so far has remained Garba Oheme and dates to 1937. 1937-8 would be the date for the first conversion to Islam in Ibagwa and Alor Agu according to the testimonies of Mutalib and Imam Eze. The first Igbo Muslim in Ibagwa was identi248 fied as Amedu Nwaoyima, who was named after his mother. Three interviewees—Imam Omeh (Enugu Ezike), Imam Eze (Alor Agu), and Mallam Ahmedu Omeje (Ibagwa-aka)—said that they were “born into Islam” to father’s who had recently embraced Islam. None of the three was born before 1936 according to their biographical submissions. This generation of indigenous Muslims would have been born into Islam in the second half of the 1930s shortly after their fathers’ conversion to Islam. If they preceded Garba Oheme it would have been by a year or two but this is uncertain and none of them claimed so, being themselves aware of Garba Oheme. The number of converts was decidedly small if by the outbreak of the civil war in 1967 they were less than a hundred as deposited by Mallam Omeje.

Women as agents of spread Men were not the only agents through whom knowledge of Islam diffused in Nsukka Division and also to other parts of Igboland. Women also played a role in this development. The first convert to Islam in Alor Agu was a female renamed Zainab. She was given in marriage to Chief Momoh from Nupe. Momoh came as a trader at an unknown date but well after Aduku and settled at Ovoko. Zainab, on her marriage, took along her younger brother to Momoh’s 249 home where he embraced Islam and assumed the name Abubakr Ugwuanyi. Shelton and Doi made references to a Chief (Bawallah) Momoh who was one of their major interviewee during their investigations of the history of the Nsukka Igbo. Shelton describes him thus: “A Nupe politician and man of all sorts … son-in-law of the ruler of Ankpa, Onu Yacubu. Conniving and clever… the proud knowledge that his own grandfather had formerly been ruler of 250 much of the borderland led only to minor embellishments.” Doi writes of tion of provinces and districts, Eteh opted to join the Nsukka Igbo. The Eteh clan is situated in the extreme north of Nsukka Division. 248 Imam Omeh Musa, interview cited. 249 Sheikh Idoko, interview cited. 250 A. Shelton, The Igbo-Igala Borderland, xiv. 95

him: “My informant, Mallam Bawallah Momoh, a Nupe politician and an influential person in the area, has married the daughter of the ruler of Ankpa, Onu 251 Yakubu and another wife happens to be an Ibo lady.” It seems very likely that our Momoh and the Momoh described by Shelton and Doi are one and the same person. In that case, the conversion of his Igbo wife to Islam could have occurred sometime between 1964 and 1965. Shelton did not mention that Momoh had an Igbo wife at the time of his interaction with him between 1962 and 252 1964 while Doi who met him from 1965 on observes his Igbo wife. In effect, therefore, conversions by indigenes to Islam began in Alor Agu in the 1960s through the instrumentality of the woman, Zainab. Intermarriage, which became an important means of conversion after the 253 Nigeria-Biafra war, featured little before 1950. The earliest known case of inter-marriage between Igbo women and Muslim migrants from North Central and Northern Nigeria was that of Aduku whose marriages with local women occurred after his naturalization into Enugu Ezike citizenship. Apart from the example of Aduku, another incidence of intermarriage between a Muslim and a local woman involved Aliru Adamu Diko, son of Diko who settled at Elele. 254 Aliri Diko was reported to have married Bojirikwe. Bojirikwe’s ethnic identity was not given in the colonial report that announced her marriage to Aliru Diko but the name very much resembles an Igbo female name “Mgbojirikwe.” There is a strong possibility that the rendering Bojirikwe was rather the result of difficulty in pronunciation for persons of non-Igbo origin and this became reflected in the writing of the name. This marriage would definitely have occurred some years after 1920. Aliru was a young man of fifteen years when his father died in 1920 leaving him and his siblings and his property in the care of his slave servant Alhaji Ododo. In September 1935 Aliru Diko, the eldest of Diko’s sons in Elele, regarding himself to have grown up, sought the intervention of the District Officer at Ahoada in assuming his position as the rightful heir and adjudicator of his deceased father’s property. The non-inclusion of the date of marriage of Aliru Diko and Bojirikwe leaves us in doubt of the true picture of things regarding Bojirikwe’s possible conversion to Islam after her mar255 riage; but one supposes that it could have occurred later than 1935 since it 251 252 253 254 255 96

Doi, Islam in Nigeria, 169. Shelton, The Igbo-Igala Borderland, xiii; Doi, Islam in Nigeria, 169. Ukagwu, The Development of Cattle trade,” 147. “Hausa people,” File: AHODIST 14/1/436, National Archives, Enugu. Ibid. Although Muslims expect their non-Muslim wives to convert to Islam after marriage, this was not always the case in the early days of Islam in Igboland, just as it is at

was mentioned after Aliru Diko’s September 1935 appeal to the District Officer 256 of Ahoada in Owerri Province. From all indications, marriage between migrants and indigenes of the region was an exception until the 1950s. It also did not appear that sub-groups of Igbo intermarried that much. The incidence that illustrates this was a case of intermarriage between an Ikwerre man and an Arochukwu woman. Both were Igbo from Owerri and Calabar provinces respectively. Their proposal of marriage prompted the Acting Resident of Owerri Province to ask: “Are Aro wo257 men allowed to marry Ikwerri men?” Mahdi Adamu’s hypothesis that “wherever Hausa migrants went, one of their first actions in settling down was to take wives from the local communities,” perhaps true of other places, falls short 258 of becoming a theory in the experience of Hausa migrants to Eastern Nigeria. It took Hausa migrants decades before they started to marry Igbo women. Ukagwu’s study of the Cattle trade in Eastern Nigeria from 1906 confirms this. The very few fathers’ who gave their daughters in marriage to migrants before 1960 did so to Nupe trade partners and not to Hausa. Ottenberg records such an incidence: “While I was at Afikpo [1960] there was a young Hausa man, and 259 another young man born of an Nsukka Igbo mother and a Nupe father.” In the 1980s onwards, as we would see in a subsequent chapter, women through mixed-religious marriages with Muslim migrants and Igbo Muslims alike would become important agents of proselytization for Islam in Igboland.

Expansion of Strangers’ Settlements and Barriers to proselytization Migrations from Northern, North Central, and Western Nigeria into the Eastern Nigeria were facilitated by infrastructural developments set in motion by the British colonial administration. Roads, railways, and waterways were built to connect different sections of the country after the enactment in 1903 of the Roads and Rivers Proclamation. By this Proclamation district commissioners

256

257 258 259

present. However, in trying to establish instances of early conversions in the oral societies of Southeast Nigeria, such possible evidence should not be glossed over for lack of supporting documents. Using the evidence of her name, it does not appear that her conversion occurred before 1935 because she would have been listed with her Muslim name as happened with Zainab of Ovoko. File: AHODIST 14/1/217, National Archives, Enugu. Adamu, The Hausa Factor. Simon Ottenberg, “A Moslem Igbo Village,” Cahiers D’Etudes Africaines, Vol. XI (42) 1971, 250. 97

had the power to compel capable men and women, through their chiefs, to 260 provide free labor for construction works. The infrastructural development was to ensure effective administration, easy movement of colonial troops, the economic exploitation of colonial territories, and the civilization of the local 261 peoples in remote districts. At first, labor was sourced from the local people but from around 1917 migrants from different parts of Northern, North Central, and Western Nigeria trickling down to the Southeast joined the work force in the new and emerging towns. Mention was made in chapter one of Mallam Halilu of Owerri who on hearing of plans to build Port Harcourt in 1917 volun262 teered and provided 500 laborers from his hometown of Zaria. Hausa migrants regularly shuttled to and fro their original homes and the new settlements. The dry seasons, from October to March, found them in Eastern Nigeria where they hired themselves out as laborers. Those who did not work as laborers engaged in trade and other economic activities. At the end of the dry season they returned to their homes to wait for the rainy season to resume their normal economic obligations. Thus, they rarely stayed too long in their settlements in Eastern Nigeria to clear the ground for proselytization, if they had wanted to proselytize. The flow of migrant laborers was partly arrested following the outbreak of the influenza pandemic in mid 1918. This incident affected mostly persons in the 20–45 years age bracket. In the peak of the crisis migrant laborers deserted 263 Southern Nigeria and returned to their towns and villages. The movement of 264 laborers from Northern Nigeria was resumed from 1920 after the pandemic. Generally, Hausa migrants were stimulated by stories of places with social conditions very different from theirs and where economic development had advanced beyond the situation in their home areas. The people so attracted and who joined in the road construction projects in Eastern Nigeria made it possible for colonial officials to circumvent the frequent interruptions caused by wide260 Felix Ekechi, Tradition and Transformation in Eastern Nigeria (Kent, Ohio: The Kent University Press, 1989), 33.

261 Joyce Cary, Britain and West Africa (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1946), 51. Armury Talbot, in 1904, described the road networks in our area of study as “meandering native tracks, often hardly distinguishable from those of bush animals, which were the only means of communication over a great part of Southern Nigeria.” Talbot, “The Land of the Ekoi,” The Geographical Journal, Vol. 36, No. 6. (1910), 639. 262 “Status of Hausa Chiefs,” File: AHODIST 14/1/436, National Archives, Enugu. 263 Ohadike, Anioma, 201. 264 It was during this period that Mallam Sule, father of the Sarikin Hausa of Enugu, came to Southeast Nigeria to join the colonial workforce. 98

265

spread resistance to road work in most of Igboland. The situation was different with the Ekoi who were praised for their initiative in road construction in 1910 and for their willingness generally, in spite of much hardship, to build 266 whenever called upon to do so. Compulsory construction of roads facilitated inter-provincial communications. Influx of migrants including cattle traders from Northern Nigeria had by 1921 produced migrant settlements at Umuahia, Okigwe, and Uzuakoli, all of 267 which were led by cattle moguls. North-Southeast migrations increased from the 1930s. The poor agricultural harvests in Northern Nigeria in 1936 following unusual flooding also fed the stream of migrants southwards. These late arrivals engaged in a variety of activities chief of which was trading but also as 268 laborers with the Public Works Department. An inventory taken in 1924 by the Resident of Owerri Province detailed the major economic engagements in 269 each of the existing stranger’s settlements as follows:

Fig. 13: Strangers’ settlements and their economic engagements Settlement

Economic Engagements

Umuahia

Cattle trade and petty trading

Uzuakoli

Petty trading

Okigwe/Afikpo Road

Trade in groundnut oil, onions, leather goods, cloth, and cattle from Northern Nigeria

Owerri (Yoruba and Hausa)

Trade in cloth, leather goods, and sheep from Lokoja and Onitsha

Oguta

Produce carriers for European firms

Aba

Trade in kola nut and ivory from Doula in Cameroun; Hawking of leather goods and mats from Northern Nigeria

The 1930s witnessed the diffusion in Eastern Nigeria of Nupe, Hausa, and Yoruba migrants in places where commercial towns developed but the migrant 270 trading population continued to be an unstable one. At Enugu, one of the new major towns that owed its development to colonial efforts, “Hausa” presence was at Coal camp where workers of the colonial government lived. This small Hausa-Nupe Community had by 1931 elected its own Sarikin, by name 265 For a detailed discussion of local resistance to road building see Ekechi, Tradition and Transformation in Eastern Nigeria, 33-38. Talbot, “The Land of the Ekoi,” 639. “Status of Hausa Chiefs,” AHODIST 14/1/436. R. M. Prothero, Migrant Labour from Sokoto Province Northern Nigeria, 37. “Hausa Settlements: Owerri Province,” File: C20/24 UMPROF 1/1/3, National Archives, Enugu. 270 “Hausa People in 1935,” File: AHODIST 14/1/436.

266 267 268 269

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Garuba, who was replaced with Sarikin Sule, a professional butcher, elected by 271 members of the Community. Their representative was Mallam Mustapha, a 272 yard foreman. By 1932 Ogui Nike, one of the outlying communities around Enugu, also had some Hausa and Nupe settlers. Numerical growth in the strangers’ settlements—Hausa and Nupe communities—was not even. Some settlements expanded quicker than others. One example is Enugu, which by 1935 already had 182 settlers from Northern Nigeria. What the roads could not do, the rails were projected to accomplish. Rail construction in Eastern Nigeria, which began in 1913 at Enugu, was intended for the full exploitation of the commercial opportunities in this region by connecting its various administrative divisions for optimal economic rewards. The major impetus was the discovery of coal at Enugu in 1909. By 1926, the Southeast rail line from Port Harcourt had reached Udi, a few miles away from 273 Enugu. The railway that was to terminate at Jos connected Igboland with North Central Nigeria at Makurdi and Jos. Feeding the rail routes were a rough network of roads both seasonal and regular roads. Most feeder roads that linked Igboland with North Central Nigeria were built in the 1940s. The network of roads and railway made north—south movements easier than in previous decades. As the population of the Nupe, Hausa, and Yoruba increased in Eastern Nigeria, so also did persons from Eastern Nigeria move around within 274 their region and to Northern and Western Nigeria for work and trade. Proselytization, early in the interactions of Muslim migrants and the peoples of Eastern Nigeria, was quite uncommon. The goal of the Hausa and Nupe migrants in the first four decades of the twentieth century was purely trade. Interviewees, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, repeatedly echoed this. The zeal to conquer the world for Islam did not seem to have had an overriding place in the thinking of Nigerian Muslim migrants in Eastern Nigeria before 1950. These migrants conducted themselves and their affairs in their places of 275 sojourn with care. 271 “Headship of the Hausa and Nupe Communities at Enugu, Onitsha Province,” File: CSE

272 273 274 275 100

1/85/6145, National Archives, Enugu. According to the colonial report, Garuba was removed after his conviction “in March 1932 … for stealing £14 tax money.” “Headship of the Hausa and Nupe Communities at Enugu, Onitsha Province,” File: CSE 1/85/6145, National Archives, Enugu. Ekechi, Tradition and Transformation in Eastern Nigeria, 44. “Intelligence Report on the Agbani Akpugo Group, Udi Division. October 1934,” File: ONDIST 12/1/708, National Archives, Enugu. Doi criticized Yoruba Muslims for giving “their daughters in marriage to pagans or Christians.” Doi, Islam in Nigeria, 180.

Of utmost importance is the fact that Eastern Nigeria was a new horizon to Hausa, Nupe, and Yoruba migrants in the first half of the twentieth century. Having entered the region, they were reserved and showed no inclination towards upsetting their host communities and endangering their business goals. There were some mutual suspicions borne out of ignorance of the inclinations 276 and tendencies of the other in migrants as well as their hosts. With the still lingering insecurity from clan and inter-ethnic wars, migrants minimized contacts with their hosts to avoid being involved in their internal squabbles and 277 perhaps do so to their own peril. Open religious advocating by strangers would have sparked further suspicion. Ottenberg provides details of an anti-colonial opposition led by women in Eastern Nigeria in 1925. It swept through Igboland and Ekoiland. In Ogoja Province this rebellion was known as the Dancing Women Movement and in Okigwe, Owerri, and Onitsha Provinces it was called Nwaobiala. The women “advocated a return to pre-European life, and a denial of colonial and missionary behavior, dress and values” and demanded for “a return to the customs and 278 religion of their ancestors.” Although the administrative officer in Abakaliki Division viewed it as an anti-government propaganda, it was nonetheless a reaction to a religious worldview, which in this case was Christianity. A similar protestation would have erupted against Muslim migrants if they had attempted, at the early stages, to draw their hosts into Islam. There was another reason why proselytization was not common in Eastern Nigeria beyond 1940. This has its origin in the colonial policy of racial segregation. The settlement of Hausa migrants was facilitated in many places by British administration. The same government kept persons from different Nigerian ethnic groups distant from each other using as yardsticks “culture” and “religion.” The major differentiation in Eastern Nigeria was made with respect to Muslims on one hand and members of the Igbo religion and Christians on the other. To effect this separation, migrants were confined to their settlements and the indigenes to their villages. The practice continued until 1939. Some contacts between the Igbo and the Nupe, Hausa, and Yoruba occurred when trade interests brought them together. However, British colonial agents backed their 276 Circumstances that prevailed a few years previously, such as danger from abduction into slavery and clan warfare, were still realities facing different ethnic groups beyond the 1920. Trade in slaves continued discretely into the late 1920s. 277 Hamza Aduku, interview cited. Also, Mohammed Bugu, Cattle merchant from Maiduguri, interview, Umuahia, February 2006. 278 Ottenberg, Farmers and Townspeople, 99. 101

policy up with official orders. A promulgation in 1932 ruled against the peoples of Eastern Nigeria “residing in Abakpa, restricting it to persons from Northern 279 Nigeria and the Yoruba.” When in 1939 internal movements increased within the region, the colonial government abandoned their policy of separating different cultural and religious groups, widened stranger’s settlements, and shared it 280 among the Hausa and Nupe, Yoruba, and Igbo. Igbo migrants, however, paid 281 gratuities to Hausa chiefs for plots in these settlements. Language difficulty was also an important factor that undermined proselytization at this period. Interactions between strangers were effected mostly with signs. This fostered the continued dependence on middlemen who could communicate in whatever way possible with the other party. An example of this is found in Abakaliki town where Mallam Momo Taylor, a Hausa from Lafia near Nassarawa in North Central Nigeria functioned as an interpreter for the Hausa and Igbo in the 1940s. Taylor migrated as a young man to Abakaliki in 1917. Within three decades he had acquired knowledge of Igbo and English and could assume leadership roles for the Muslim community in relation to both the host community and the colonial government. Taylor’s multilingualism brought him into the Urban Council in 1946 where he served as spokesman for matters involving people from Northern Nigeria with the Igbo and also for the 282 northern migrant community and the government. Converts to Islam in Igboland between 1937 and 1950 reported that their attraction to Hausa traders and Islam was not because of contact through friendship ties but from their isolated observation of Hausa Muslims’ commitment to their religious duties, chiefly 283 the daily prayers.

279 280 281 282 283 102

Ibid., 93. Ibid., 87. Ibid., 94. Ibid., 208. Imam Omeh Musa and Imam Eze, interviews cited.

CHAPTER 3 THE EXPANSION OF ISLAM AFTER 1950

Post 1950 Developments Islam made significant headway in Igboland in the 1950s and again in the 1970s after the civil war. Some of these gains will be examined in this chapter. The success of Islam in Igboland during this period corresponded with increase in migration from Northern Nigeria to Eastern Nigeria. The first wave, precisely from Sokoto, Niger, and Zaria Provinces, was engineered by the difficult dry 284 season and bad harvest of 1952 to 53. Movement was by way of the River Niger and the major town of interest was Onitsha. Migrants, assumed to be between fifteen and forty-five years, covered a distance of about 610 miles to get 285 to Onitsha. With almost no knowledge of literacy in Roman script, they engaged in trade or worked as unskilled laborers. Prothero reports some degree of 286 antipathy from their hosts because of their uncouth appearance and illiteracy. Despite the spirited efforts made by three brothers from Kano, who claimed to have been sent by Allah to Onitsha to teach the people Islam, the religion remained the concern of migrants until 1973 when Tijani Akubuo became the 287 first indigene of Onitsha to convert to Islam. 284 R. M. Prothero, Migrant Labour from Sokoto Province, Northern Nigeria (Kaduna: Government Printers, Northern Region of Nigeria, 1958), 33-37.

285 Ibid., 29, 36-37. 286 Ibid., 43. Also, Obinna Muoh, “Islam in Onitsha, 1943–2006,” B. A. project, University of Nigeria (2007), 36-45.

287 Dr. C. Emetuma, b. 1954, Traditional Ruler of Akabo Autonomous Community, interview, Owerri, April 2010. G. T. Basden confirmed the presence of Muslim migrants from Northern Nigeria in Onitsha by 1900, observing that the people “closed all fronts against invasion by Islam:” Basden, Among the Ibos of Nigeria (London: Frank Cass, 1966), 241. Mallam Haruna, a cattle dealer, arrived Onitsha in 1930 with two brothers for missionary work. They were successful among the migrant community but not with the indigenes. In an interview, in 2005, with the leader of the Hausa Muslim community, whose opinion it was that Islam has greater chances of progressing with the Igbo as agents of propagation, he reported on Islam in Onitsha before and after the civil war: “Regarding the spread of Islam in Onitsha, the Muslim migrants minded their economic interests. Neither they nor the indigenes allowed themselves to be influenced by the religion of the other. There was no case of an indigene joining in the weekly prayer before the war that I can recall. At present Islam is mainly practiced by Muslim settlers who brought the religion.” Mallam Ibrahim, chief imam, interview, Ontisha, June 2005. (Mallam S. M. Suberu, leader of the Yoruba Muslim community, also expressed the same view in a separate interview.) 103

Fig. 14: Migration from Sokoto to Eastern Nigeria, 1954 The Roads and Rivers Proclamation of 1903 had by the 1950s been effective in connecting all sections and peoples of Nigeria to each other and to the colonial economy. By 1952 the Port Harcourt rail line started in 1917 had connected major colonial Igbo towns like Aba, Bende, Umuahia, and Enugu with towns in North Central and Northern Nigeria such as Oturkpo, Markurdi, Lafia, Kafanchan, Bukuru, Jos, Gombe, and Maiduguri. By 1956 Onitsha was connected by 288 road with Enugu, and onwards to Gboko and Makurdi, Jos and Yola. The road networks linked together many hinterland peoples and led to the springing up of a series of roadside markets. An Hausa trader spoke on the degree of change in Nigeria since the colonial times and emphasized the facilitation of internal travel and communication by the development and expansion of modern transportation systems. His forefathers in 1910, he observed, walked on foot with their cattle to Igboland in the process of which some animals and migrants died on the way. Within a few decades, all that was required was a maximum 289 of 48 hours “to come from the north to Owerri with whatever goods” they had. 288 A. T. Grove, The Benue Valley (Kaduna: Ministry of Natural Resources, Northern Nigeria, 1956), 7 & 10.

289 Alhaji Danladi, b. 1950, interview, Owerri, February 2006. 104

Extending Islam to Owerri Owerri was the next town after Enugu Ezike and Ibagwa where Islam touched the lives of Igbo indigenes. Conversions to Islam in Owerri began in 1950 despite the existence since 1903 of a Hausa settlement in the town, whose numbers had reasonably appreciated in 1939 to warrant their sending a representative to 290 the Oratta Native Authority Council. Alhaji Dauda Onyeagocha, the chief imam of Owerri central mosque, told how in the years after 1945, which saw the settling at Owerri of colonial soldiers most of whom were from Northern Nigeria and the influx of Muslim Hausa traders into the town, Owerri experienced a series of strange occurrences in the form of mysterious deaths. The people attributed these happenings to the presence of the Muslim migrants in their midst and therefore expelled Muslims from areas inhabited by Owerri in291 digenes. They offered them, instead, a part of their evil forest. The migrants, as reported, cleared and settled in the evil forest that eventually became Ama Awusa—Hausa settlement at Owerri. The survival of these migrants in the evil 292 forest fascinated Owerri indigenes, drawing their attention to Islam. This incident did not immediately produce conversions to Islam in Owerri town. One of the early converts told how people from Owerri began to convert to Islam: Muslims first came to Owerri around 1910 and 1911. They were mostly from Hausaland… The local people were ignorant of the religious practices of these settlers… Later, the religion began to appeal to those Igbo who had resided or attended one school or the other in Northern Nigeria… I was born into a Christian family and my parents were staunch propagators of the Catholic faith. I became a Muslim in 1950 and by that time there were just few Igbo Muslim converts. It was during that 293 period that Islam started taking shape in Owerri and its surroundings. The initial converts to Islam in Owerri were persons who sojourned in North290 Felix Ekechi, Tradition and Transformation in Eastern Nigeria: A Sociopolitical History of Owerri and its Hinterland, 1902–1947 (Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1989), 188. 291 These are bushes where persons who died mysteriously were thrown into. The Igbo distanced themselves from such areas, believing them to be the home of malevolent spirits. 292 Alhaji Dauda Onyeagocha, chief imam of Owerri central mosque, interview, February 2006. 293 Alhaji Ibrahim Iwuanyanwu, b. 1934, Mbaitoli, January 2006. 105

ern Nigeria, schooled or worked there, and became Muslims there. Organized Islamic worship began in Owerri after “the end of the Nigerian Civil War,” re294 ports the chief imam. Muslims erected a place of worship in the 1970s on land that previously housed Nigerian soldiers. Following their evacuation from Owerri, the land was donated by its owner to Muslims for the development of 295 Islam in Owerri. Islam did not thrive rapidly in Owerri. Non-Igbo Muslims continued to outnumber the Igbo by a very visible margin. Shehu Kangiwa, who by 2006 had 296 lived in Owerri for fifty-six years, reported: “very few Igbo worship with us.” Alhaji Iwuanyawu’s projections for the growth of Islam in Owerri in the next decade indicates the difficulty of propagation of Islam for fifty years: I expect that in the next ten years a much larger number of Igbo converts would be recorded. This is Igboland. It is not good that settlers 297 outnumber us. Our number should be increased.

The Enohia (Anohia) awakening of 1958 Afikpo, a sub district of the old Abakiliki Division from 1915 to 1923, was from 1905 a familiar terrain to Hausa settlers. With the British conquest of the area in 1902, a government station was established at Afikpo that served as a base 298 for military patrols and had in residence “Moslem Hausa” soldiers. Muslim traders and prostitutes from Northern Nigeria later joined the soldiers at Afikpo. When the soldiers left the station in the 1930s so also did the prostitutes and 299 traders. The village of Enohia, one of twenty-two villages in the Afikpo village-group was an isolated community in Afikpo Division. Its major occupation was fishing, engaged in by all able-bodied men who spent October to June each year on the Cross River. Enohia’s contacts with the outside world were largely 294 Alhaji Dauda Onyeagocha. 295 The land belonged to the father of Alhaji Dauda Onyeagocha. 296 Shehu Kangiwa, b. 1945, interview, Owerri, February 2006. Doi’s statistics of Igbo Muslims in 1984, compiled from data submitted by Muslim leaders in Igboland, put together the number for Owerri and Orlu at 500 persons. Incidentally, Orlu has more indigenous Muslims than Owerri. No recent statistics for Owerri Muslims could be procured. However, making allowance for increase in conversions and the birth of children to converts, I propose that Owerri Muslims may number about 300 to 400 persons currently. 297 Alhaji Iwuanyanwu. 298 Charles Patridge, Cross River Natives (London: Hutchinson and Co., 1905), 116 299 Simon Ottenberg, “A Moslem Igbo Village,” Cahiers D’Etudes Africaines, Vol. XI (42) 1971, 236. 106

through Calabar, one hundred miles south of Afikpo town, at whose markets they traded their manufactures and other trade goods. Contacts with the Efik were of such depth that many from Enohia like other Afikpo villages learned to 300 speak Efik. Previous to 1939 when the colonial policy of separating groups on the parameters of religion and culture was in force, there was no evidence of direct contacts between Enohia and persons of Northern Nigerian origin. Ottenberg writes of “some contact with Moslems at Afikpo from the 1940s on, for they had a cattle trade route running from Abakaliki to Umuahia which passed by the village-group.” He goes further to say that “While a few of these ‘Hausa’ 301 lived at Afikpo, others were itinerant cattle traders.” There was no suggestion of an indigene of Enohia converting to Islam either directly or remotely. A turning point occurred in the religious configuration of Afikpo and of Abakaliki 302 Division in 1957 when Okpani Egwuani of Enohia, Anohia in colonial records, returned to Afikpo. He was previously a member of the Roman Catholic Church who converted to Islam and assumed the new name of Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse Nwagui. Simon Ottenberg’s article “A Moslem Igbo Village” considerably lightens the task of reconstructing the story of the spread of Islam in this 303 community. However, oral accounts collected between 2003 and 2006 is be 304 used alongside Ottenberg’s article for this incident. Okpani Egwuani, popular as Okpani Agu prior to his conversion to Islam and change of name to Ibrahim Niasse Nwagui, was born at Enohia Itim in 305 Afikpo Division in 1920. His primary education was obtained under the Ro300 Simon Ottenberg, Farmers and Townspeople in a Changing Nigeria: Abakaliki during

301 302 303 304

305

Colonial Times (1905-1960) (Ibadan: Spectrum Books, 2005), 225-5; Simon Ottenberg, “A Moslem Igbo Village,” 231-259. The Afikpo village group had 22 villages of which Enohia was one. Ibid. Enohia is preferred over Anofia because it is how the people address themselves and how they are represented in the records of Ebonyi State Government to which they belong. Simon Ottenberg, “A Moslem Igbo Village,” 231-259. There are also few remarks by Doi on Enohia, which he called “Nnohia.” See Doi, Islam in Nigeria, 171-72. Oral data on Enohia came from the following: Sheikh Adam Idoko; Haroun Aja, b. 1958, interview, Abakaliki, October 2003; Chief P. E. Nwainyinya, b. 1951, interview, Abakaliki, October 2003; Dauda Arua, interview, Abakaliki, February 2003; Yusuf Item, b. 1976, interview, Abakaliki, January 2004; Sheikh Obini Ekpe, b. 1958, interview, Abakaliki, January 2004; Mrs. Maria Nwachukwu, b. 1937, interview, Enohia Itim, February 2006, and Mallam Yusuf Ude, c. 75 years, interview, Amaukpo Afikpo, February 2006. One of my interviewees reported that Okpani (Nwagui) was born in 1910 but since Ottenberg interviewed him in person in 1960, I have used his rendering of his birth date of 1920. 107

Fig. 15: Ebonyi State showing Enohia in Afikpo North Local Government Area man Catholic Church and the Afikpo Government Primary School. Ibrahim Nwagui worked at Calabar, Fernando Po, and Lagos. He served in the Nigerian army from 1944 to 1946. It was supposedly at Lagos that he had the dream that led to his conversion, the contents of which was recounted by Alhaji Dauda Arua as follows: “Allah revealed to him everything about Islam and its propagation. On waking up he traced the religion according to the dream to Senegal where he attended an Islamic school and became a full Arabic scholar and theologian.” The popular story about Nwagui’s conversion, which also Ottenberg recorded, had it that he was shown in his dream Ibrahim Nyas (or Niasse) of Kaolak, in Senegal, and two other “Muslim holy men fully bearded and 306 wearing white.” We can reconcile these accounts by assuming that in the same dream where Ibrahim Nyas and the two other holy men appeared to 306 Dauda Arua, interview cited. 108

Nwagui, he was also informed about Islam and its propagation, of course, in Enohia and other Afikpo towns. There is a strong possibility that the Hausa community in Afikpo could have indirectly influenced Ibrahim Nwagui’s conversion to Islam although this was neither suggested nor inferred by my interviewees, nearly all of whom were closely acquainted with him. Afikpo was one of the emerging colonial towns in the Igboland with a settled Hausa community dating to 1921, approximately about the time that Nwagui was born. Nwagui would have been aware of this group and their existence in his youth in the 1940s, a time also when the colonial policy of separation of races was already ended and from which time there was greater intermingling of Igbo and northern strangers. There is nothing to prove that Nwagui did not encounter them at markets and in the streets in the early 1940s even though his 307 chroniclers assume that he had no dealings with them. If a remote awareness of Islam or an attraction for the religion developed, it would have been nurtured in the years he worked at Lagos and when he was an employee in the Nigerian army where he served alongside Muslim Hausa and Yoruba soldiers prior to his trip to Senegal in 1946. Since he did not convert to Islam in Nigeria, his conversion could well have taken place anytime between 1946 and 1950, the date of his first pilgrimage to Mecca. On one hand, Nwagui’s conversion appears like an act of defiance to western colonial and religious domination and, on the other, an attempt to break the strong correlation of Islam with the Hausa ethnic group very current in Igbo308 land in his days. His conversion, outside the agency of a northern Muslim, became a boost for Islam in Igboland thereafter. As Doi rightly noted, Nwagui’s conversion and aggressive propagation of Islam suggested to the Igbo that Islam merits consideration beyond its narrow confines as the Hausa man’s reli309 gion. Nwagui spent roughly a decade in Senegal from where he performed two 307 Sheikh Idoko suggests that Nwagui converted in Nigeria prior to his trip abroad but other interviewees, and even scholars, maintain that his conversion occurred outside the country. Reports Idoko: “I learnt that people in Nsukka went to Nwagui’s town and participated in their conversion… Many were not literate but Nwagui who some said was a Christian evangelist or Catechist became a Muslim while already literate. After his conversion he traveled to Senegal. After acquiring Islamic knowledge there he came back and took that spirit of evangelism and became aggressive in his propagation of Islam in his town.” 308 It is my opinion that Nwagui carefully “planned” his conversion to occur outside Nigeria and through a non-Nigerian Muslim. 309 Doi, Islam in Nigeria, 172. 109

pilgrimages in 1950 and 1955 before returning to Afikpo in 1957. Dauda Arua reports that a letter, from Nwagui to the town’s leaders calling them away from idol worship and informing them of his intention to destroy their idols, pre310 ceded his return to Enohia in 1958. The slight deviation in the above remarks from the account presented by Ottenberg, collected the year after these events took place, would be blamed partly on the distortion that attends oral history while in the process of diffusion and partly also on the need to embellish the story to the advantage of Nwagui’s career and the prestige of Islam. Ottenberg shows that the prelude to the verbal remark about destroying idols was the visit to Nwagui by the elders of Enohia requesting help with certain mysterious deaths and other untoward happenings in Enohia. Consequently Nwagui responded that before he would come to live with them the shrines must be destroyed. He then asked if they agreed to his suggestion. When they consented he told them to go back and tell their people. He could not have written a community announcing intention to destroy communal places of worship without precedence. That would have appeared confrontational and a breach of peace when Enohia and all Nigeria were still under colonial domination. Enohia’s final acceptance of Islam is remarkable and stands in very clear contrast to other Igbo communities. Enohia community celebrated Nwagui’s return and requested him to settle and establish his religion in the village. Although Nwagui was more concerned with reaching out to the wider Afikpo village-group and preferred to settle outside Enohia, at the Government Station at Afikpo, his community was no doubt well disposed to his new religion being attracted by his recently acquired wealth. He had returned with an escort of Hausa Muslims, with vehicles, and other material possessions. The process however of getting the community to accept Islam was tortuous. When Nwagui pressed through direct propagation, money, and sheer force to turn Enohia into a Muslim village, refractory voices were heard. Majority clearly opposed the move along with other changes intended including the already mentioned destruction of village shrines. “Being a new religion, the environment was hostile to its propagation,” recalled Dauda Arua. He added that later some joined Nwagui while “majority of the people rejected Islam because it was against the religion of their ancestors and did not allow them to practise their culture 311 fully.”

310 Dauda Arua, interview cited. 311 Ibid. 110

Nwagui’s attempt to bring the village of Enohia to revert to Islam generated much conflict in Enohia. There were a series of court cases from 1958 requiring the mediation of the police, the Afikpo Native Authority Court, and the Assistant District Officer. Temporary peace came when, under the supervision of the Assistant District Officer, a part of the village was formally converted to Islam on October 28, 1958 in a ceremony officiated by Hausa companions of Nwagui 312 and witnessed by Muslim guests from Nsukka Division. The event was indeed revolutionary. Shrines were destroyed and the sacred bush was nearly all cleared. Enohia’s three wards became divided into Muslim and non-Muslim sections separated by a mat fence that has remained a feature of the village since then. The Muslim section, renamed Medina village, grew out of one of the three original wards of Enohia. In actual numbers the converts were not many. Ottenberg records that Nwagui converted persons “who belonged to the related group of patrilineages of which he was a member, wives who had married into these groupings, and a few other Anohia persons,” and about ten other converts 313 were drawn from the central villages of Afikpo. Enohia became the village with the highest concentration of Igbo Muslims from this date. About 50 per314 sons would have taken part in the group conversion in 1958. In 1959 Sheikh Ibrahim Nwagui converted into a mosque the communal rest house for Enohia men that housed the secret society masks and other paraphernalia. Enohia Muslims relocated to the vicinity of the mosque. In 1960, at the beginning of the secret society season, a dispute ensued. Enohia nonMuslims took legal action against the Muslims for denying them access to the building and preventing them from preparing for their traditional ceremony. The Native Court ruled in favor of non-Muslims. Muslims were fined £50 (50 315 pounds) and asked to move their mosque away from the rest house. Nwagui’s house was used instead as mosque for several years. As tensions continued to mount in the Muslim-non-Muslims relations in Enohia, Muslims were barred from some social functions, including sitting with other elders at meet316 ings and in the village market. From 1963, Nwagui embarked on a series of projects aimed at transforming Enohia Muslim community. Haroun Ajah, Nwagui’s son-in-law, reports: 312 Sheikh Adam Idoko, interview cited. 313 Ottenberg, “A Moslem Igbo Village,” 240-1. 314 From information supplied by Ibrahim Nwagui, Doi placed the number of Enohia Muslims in 1984, twenty-six years after, at 300 persons. Doi, Islam in Nigeria, 182. 315 Ottenberg, “A Moslem Igbo Village,” 245. 316 Alhaji Ahmed Onyeama, 62 years, interview, Abakaliki, September 2003. 111

Those Hausa mallams and teachers that moved to Enohia with Nwagui taught Enohia Muslim converts what Islam was all about. Together with Nwagui, they transformed Enohia into a viable citadel 317 of learning and a strong base for Islamic propagation. Nwagui’s first project was the establishment of a nursery school where Muslim children could learn to recite the Qur’an. The nursery school was run by Arabic scholars and Muslim companions of Nwagui from Senegal and Hausaland and was funded by the Senegalese government through Alhaji Nias from its inception until the death of Ibrahim Nwagui in 1975. The establishment in 1965 of an Islamic Centre, called the Bahia Islamic Centre, came next. The Jordanian Am318 bassador to Nigeria, Kamil Eisshariff, laid the foundation stone of the centre. When Enohia Muslims complained that their children suffered discrimination in the mission schools and were not allowed to do their prayers at school, Nwagui directed their withdrawal from the mission schools and proceeded to 319 establish, with financial assistance from Senegal, an Islamic school. Nwagui wanted a pro-Muslim education for Enohia Muslim children and to avoid any exposure that could challenge their Islamic belief similar to the experience of 320 Muslim converts in Western Nigeria. Doi records on Enohia in 1965 reads: The Islamic centre, apart from organizing Islamic activities, built a Muslim primary school with a bias on Quranic studies. The teachers were provided by the Saudi Arabian government. The two enthusiastic teachers in the early stage of the school were Muhammad Ali Hag Nur, a Sudanese, and Maulay Hassan, a Morrocan who organized Islamic preaching activities after school hours. Later they were joined by an Igbo teacher, Ibrahim Chukwu Idam, a native of Amuze in 321 Afikpo. The result of Nwagui’s efforts to popularise his faith in and around Enohia was quite remarkable. First it reversed the low status of Enohia in the Afikpo village group. Second, in spite of the hostility to Islam and suspicions over the true intent of Enohia Muslims, some young, mission-educated, persons in and 317 Sheikh Haroun Aja, interview cited. 318 Ebonyi State Government: http://ebonyistategov.net/tourismt.htm (2007). 319 Another reason given for the withdrawal of Muslim children from mission schools was that “the school was established for Christians and not Muslims.” Olaiyi Saibou, interview, Abakaliki, January 2006. 320 P. B. Clarke and Ian Linden, Islam in Modern Nigeria (Mainz: Grunewald, 1984). 321 Doi, Islam in Nigeria, 173. 112

around Enohia admired the rapidity with which Nwagui introduced change in 322 his Muslim community between 1958 and 1959. It contrasted with the slow pace common with the leadership of their elders. Mallam Ibrahim Eze paid him the following tribute: “The history of Islam in Igboland is largely the history of 323 Sheikh Ibrahim Niasse Nwagui.” In the 60s and 70s, his efforts resonated at Afikpo town, Amasiri, Okposi, Akabo, Eddah, Orlu, and Ugwulangwu.

The civil war years The political climate in Nigeria after independence in 1960 was one of total breakdown of law and order. The major incidents were the coup d’état of January 1966 and the Nigerian Civil War of June 1967 to January 1970. It would be shown later how the 1966 coup and Nigeria – Biafra war, 1967 to 70, brought about the degeneration of the Igbo – Hausa relationship, deepening their ethno324 religious differences. The January coup was blamed on the Igbo ethnic group subsequent to an 325 allegation made by a British Newspaper that it was an Igbo coup. The Igbo refuted this claim on the grounds that the coup had other ethnic groups represented among its executors. The actual implementation, indeed, left much to be desired and therefore created room for the claim that it was an Igbo coup. A recent analysis of the coup reads: The cause of the Nigerian Civil War was the miscalculation of Nigerian Army officers at that time, under Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu, when their coup appeared to be partial. There were killings in Kaduna, Ibadan, and Lagos, but not in the eastern part of the country. If the 322 Ottenberg, “A Moslem Igbo Village,” 247. 323 Mallam Ibrahim Eze, b. 1938, chief imam, interview, Nsukka, July 2003. 324 In between these crises were other equally explosive incidents that polarized Nigerians along ethnic and political lines: The controversy over the 1962-63 population censuses, the 1964 federal elections—Nigeria’s first post-independence elections, again the Western Region election of 1965, and Decree 34 of May 1966 that prescribed a unitary government for Nigeria. These crises and the loss of confidence they generated affected intergroup mingling and temporarily halted migrations across ethnic borders. The migratory routes were reversed as migrants began to return to their original homelands or to less turbulent areas. The highly charged areas were first Western Nigeria from 1962 until December 1965 and, afterwards, Eastern Nigeria and Northern Nigeria simultaneously from January 1966 until the outbreak of the civil war in June 1967. See, Egodi Uchendu, Women and Conflict in the Nigerian Civil War (Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 2007) 4-5. 325 John de St. Jorre, The Nigerian Civil War (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1972), 43-44. 113

premier of Northern Nigeria or premier of Western Nigeria or the prime minister of Nigeria were that bad; I don’t see what made Okpara [in the East] a saint. They didn’t touch anybody in the Midwest and the East, or even arrest their leaders. But here in the North, it was a bloody coup. So, it was patently clear, two days after, when the dust cleared, that the coup was essentially up against the Northern and 326 Western interests… The massacre of the Igbo, which mildly affected the Efik and Ibibio of Eastern Nigeria, was the eventual outcome of a coup that privileged a section of the country against others. Amidst the tension created by the massacres in Northern and Western Nigeria, the government of the Eastern Region issued an eviction order in November 1966 requesting all migrants from the Northern and Western Regions to vacate the Southeast. The disturbances of 1966 that forced the Igbo out of Northern Nigeria did same to northerners in Eastern Nigeria especially. The political situation in Nigeria further degenerated when the Eastern Region government opted for a separate existence from Nigeria in March 1967 adopting the ancient name of Biafra for the new republic. The Nigerian government under Lieutenant Yakubu Gowon sent troops to the region to quell the rebellion. The humble inroad Islam was making into Eastern Nigeria and Igboland in particular was nearly obliterated by the Nigeria–Biafra war that spanned the months of June 1967 to January 1970. The civil war pitched Igbo society against the emerging Igbo Muslim group, then a very insignificant minority amidst an overwhelming non-Muslim population that exceeded 14 million. Doi noted the sparseness of Igbo Muslims in 327 Nsukka Division between 1965 and 1967. Decidedly, the civil war was a difficult time for the Igbo as a group but was tougher on Igbo Muslims. One Igbo Muslim family from Owerri that escaped to Cameroon during the war did so because “in the north they were killing the Igbo; in the east they were search328 ing out Muslims.” Lt. Col. Odumegwu Ojukwu who led Biafra in its war of separation from Nigeria articulated in 1969 the stand of the Igbo, if not for the entire Southeast, on Islam. The official communication on the war partly located it within a reli-

326 Alhaji Dambatta in Desmond Mgboh, “Nigerian nationalists fought for independence without vision of what to do with it,” Daily Sun, Thursday, 1 May 2008. 327 Doi, Islam in Nigeria, 178. 328 Abdullahi, interview, Owerri, February 2006. 114

gious matrix, describing the crisis as a conflict against Muslim expansionism in Nigeria. Extracts from the Ahiara Declaration of 1969 reads: Our struggle has far-reaching significance… We are the latest victims of a wicked collusion between the three traditional scourges of the black man - racism, Arab-Muslim expansionism and white economic imperialism. … The Biafran struggle is, on another plane, a resistance to the Arab-Muslim expansionism which has menaced and ravaged the African continent for twelve centuries. As early as the first quarter of the seventh century, the Arabs, a people from the Near-East, evolved Islam not just as a religion but as a cover for their insatiable territorial ambitions. By the tenth century they had overrun and occupied, among other places, Egypt and North Africa. Had they stopped there, we would not today be faced with the wicked and unholy collusion we are fighting against. On the contrary, they cast their hungry and envious eyes across the Sahara on to the land of the Negroes. Our Biafran ancestors remained immune from the Islamic contagion. From the middle years of the last century Christianity was established in our land. In this way we came to be a predominantly Christian people. We came to stand out as a non-Muslim island in a raging Islamic sea. Throughout the period of the ill-fated Nigerian experiment, the Muslims hoped to infiltrate Biafra by peaceful means and quiet propaganda, but failed. Then the late Ahmadu Bello, the Sarduana of Sokoto tried, by political and economic blackmail and terrorism, to convert Biafrans settled in Northern Nigeria to Islam. His hope was that these Biafrans on dispersion would then carry Islam to Biafra, and by so doing give the religion political control of the area. The crises which agitated the so-called independent Nigeria from 1962 gave these aggressive proselytisers the chance to try converting us by force. … Biafra is one of the few African states untainted by Islam. Therefore, to militant Arabism, Biafra is a stumbling block to their plan for con329 trolling the whole continent. The studies on the civil war have not addressed the fate of the roughly less than three hundred Igbo Muslims who as Biafrans engaged in battle with sol329 Odumegwu Ojukwu, The Ahiara Declaration: The principles of the Biafran Revolution (Government Printers, 1969). 115

diers many of whom they had strong religious bonds with. In their recollections of the war, they presented the crisis as a very difficult experience. Igbo Muslims interpreted the war as an occasion for Biafra leadership to deal with indigenous Muslims in the region and described themselves as “victims of the 330 war in the hands of their own bothers.” Among some Igbo and Hausa Muslims, the Nigeria–Biafra war was a religious crisis while some perceived it as ethnic rivalry. Undoubtedly, there were many sides to that war. There were personal, national, international, political, and social dimensions to the war. And, Muslims and Christians fought together on both sides of the conflict. It is therefore amateurish to limit the war to simply religious or ethnic causes. Biafran leadership, dominated by the Igbo, would appear to have envisaged the war as offering an opportunity to wipe out Islam in Eastern Nigeria. Biafran persecution of Igbo Muslims was gradual beginning after the assassination in May 1966 of Major General Aguiyi Irosi, the Igbo Head of State; and the waves of massacres that swept Northern and Western Nigeria, targeting primarily persons of Igbo origin. Biafran government would appear to have avenged the death of the Igbo in Northern Nigeria on persons of Northern Nigeria origin found in Biafra after November 1966 when the evacuation edict was issued to northerners. Dauda Ojobe, who was a former Biafran officer, shared the experience of few Hausa women married to Igbo men whom he encountered in 1969. These women returned to Igboland with their Igbo husbands and children in 1966 as the Igbo fled the massacres in Northern Nigeria. In Biafra, they were taken and detained at Umuahia. Their circumstances altered according to the fortunes of the war. As circumstances in Biafra deteriorated, their situation worsened. Mid way through the war, they were fed once on alternate days until eventually released and sent out of Biafra. At Owerri some Igbo men married to northern women 331 were mobbed because of the crisis. Biafran government treated indigenous of Igboland Muslims as it did nonindigenes. First, Igbo Muslims were asked to change their names to Christian

330 Haruna Aja, interview cited. Some interviewees expressed delight that the Biafra dream did not materialize. They claimed that the motive was deceitful and gave credit to God for denying Biafra victory. 331 Dauda Ojobe, b. 1928, (became Muslim in 1971), interview, Enugu Ezike, May 2003. 116

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and traditional names or anything that is neither Islamic nor Hausa. Eze, who dropped his Arabic name recounted that experience:

Ibrahim

Question: Papa, is there any reason why you do not have an Igbo name? Answer: I gave myself an Igbo name during the war. I answered Michael Eze. You will find it in my identity card. Question: But your father did not give you an Igbo name? Answer: No… During the war people knew that I was a Muslim. They also knew when I was praying together with Hausa Muslims. Some started saying “Is this Hausa man still here; what is he still doing?” I had to explain that I was Igbo and Muslim and not an Hausa man as some misunderstood me to be. When they asked me my name, I told them Michael. I started then to use that name. I put Michael Eze on 333 my identity card. The demand for change of name was followed by calls for abandonment of Islam. Some renounced their faith but some did not. Some who did returned to 334 Islam after the war. An elderly Muslim, recounted some of the happenings in Enugu Ezike in 1967 as follows: In April, local authorities in Enugu Ezike summoned an elders’ council to which Igbo Muslims from the different villages were invited. It was demanded of them to renounce their faith and take an oath at the ancestral shrine not to practice Islam. Some Igbo Muslims out of fear of persecution renounced their faith, some ignored the briefings and others left their villages for towns in Benue and Kogi States like Akpanya, Odoru, Ogugu, and Okpoo. Those who stayed behind lived in fear. They suffered rejection from their communities, denial of justice related to civil or criminal cases. Right to landed properties were denied them as well as claim to debts owed them. There was also the harassment, by the Civil Defence, of people they were meant to pro-

332 Yusuf Ude, interview cited. Igbo Muslims around Nsukka construed this as an attempt to blot out Hausa Islamic ideology and custom and replace it with Western Christian colonial ideology. 333 Mallam Ibrahim Eze, interview cited. 334 Mallam Ahmed Omeje, b. 1936, interview, Ibagwa-aka, May 2003. 117

tect. The Civil Defence targeted suspect criminals and saboteurs. Be335 cause of this, Igbo Muslims were seldom seen in the day. In a separate interview at Ibagwa, Mallam Omeje reported similar occurrences in Ibagwa at the onset of hostilities: The community had a meeting for us. They treated us as Hausas... They killed Muslims here. We are not Hausa but there was little difference between our way of life and theirs… During the war we could not practice Islam. Some relocated but I stayed behind. I led the Muslims who met the Federal Unit Commander to ask for permission to stay with them because of the problems we were having in the community. We were allowed to relocate close to the army camp. Later, 336 our camp became a refuge for non-Muslims. The stigmatization of indigenous Muslims in Igboland, according to eyewitness account, was general all over Eastern Nigeria. Reports from Port Harcourt were 337 no different from other parts of Igboland. There were claims that Biafran soldiers destroyed the property of the Muslim community of Enohia during the 338 crises, the destruction of the mosque at Enugu Ezike by the Civil Defence, 339 searching of residences of Muslims for arms, and physical abuse by beating. Mohammed from Orlu recalled his discomfort when relatives and neighbors became suspicious of him and on occasion demanded that he prove his innocence and commitment to Biafra by joining the Biafran army. He was twenty-two years at the outbreak of the war and therefore well within the age for military service. His refusal to join the Biafran army meant that he was constantly in hiding to escape Biafran soldiers when on recruitment drives. These frequently visited his home forcing his relocation to Nassarawa in North Central Nigeria 340 where he remained till the end of the war. Adam Usman linked Biafra persecution of Igbo Muslims to their refusal to fight for Biafra during the war: “None of us accepted to fight in the war so the people said that we were enemies. 335 Garba Oheme, b. 1908, interview, Enugu Ezike, June 2003. In a hyperbolic sense the re-

336 337 338 339 340 118

moval to non-conflict zones could be regarded as a hijra, except that no jihad was declared but the normal efforts after the war to seek for spiritual, alongside material, rehabilitation of survivors. Mallam Omeje, interview cited. Alhaji Ali, b. 1941, imam, interview, Port Harcourt, February 2006. Haroun Aja and Adam Idoko, interviews cited. Abdullahi Igboama, interview, Enugu, January 2006. Alhaji Mohammed, b. 1945, interview, Orlu, February 2006.

They persecuted us through their sons in the army. So we ran to Nigerian sol341 diers…” Apparently considerations on which side to support in the conflict were determined as much by religious ties as by ethnicity. Igbo Muslims took various precautionary measures to protect their families and escape harassments from the early stages of the war. Children and youths were sent to North Central or Northern Nigeria. Printed materials on Islam some of which originated from other Muslim countries and, which prior to the war, could be purchased at Onitsha were with the crisis unpopular in Igboland. Persons in possession of such materials destroyed or buried them for fear of punishment if found in their possession. Other markers of Islam such as the flowing white gowns for men, the caps, and prayer beads were carefully dispensed with. Religious celebrations were also kept at bay. An attempt to hold a group prayer session in Ibagwa in 1968 led to the arrest of worshippers by the 342 regular police. Hunger was a common problem, too. The embattled Igbo Muslims found themselves at the crossroads between two opposing camps: with one they shared ethnic allegiance, and, with the other, religious allegiance. Non-Muslim parents of Muslim converts were also in similar situation. These parents joined their Muslim children wherever they were. Both were suspects to the contending armies. Biafra categorized them as Biafran saboteurs and federal soldiers suspected them of spying on them for Biafra. It was not surprising that a few of those who sought refuge outside Igboland never returned to it after the war and completely relinquished their Igbo identity. The example was cited of Mallam Saidou who in addition to settling 343 permanently at Oturkpo had since the war not spoken Igbo. The allegations of harassment from members of the Biafra Civil Defence organization add to the pile of charges levelled against that organization by Bi344 afran civilians as a whole during that war. An incident that occurred early in the war, between an Igbo convert to Islam and the civil defence, came up a number of times during interviews. The first time I heard it, the convert told the story. Subsequently, I heard it repeated by his son and some other acquaintances. The account from the son is reproduced here along with reactions to it: 341 Adam Usman, interview, Nsukka, May 2003. 342 Hassan Isah, interview, Ibagwa-ani, January 2006; Yaro Mohammed, b. 1947, interview, Nsukka, January 2006; and Alhaji Ali, interview cited.

343 Hassan Issah, interview cited. 344 See, A. Madiebo, The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War (Enugu: Fourth Dimension, 1980); J. O. G. Achuzia, Requiem Biafra (Enugu: Fourth Dimension, 1986), and Uchendu, Women and Conflict. 119

Mallam G was one of those who remained behind in his village as other Muslims left for Northern Nigeria and the Middle Belt. Severally he was summoned for questioning by the civil defence and security agents in his town. One day, by midnight, he went over to the federal army and surrendered. The next day he returned to the village escorted by a federal soldier and met his family intact. Five days later, federal soldiers invaded Enugu Ezike. Finally, Nsukka as a whole was liberated. Mallam G became the go between for his community and the federal soldiers. Through him relief materials and medical aid from the International Red Cross came in. Harassments from the civil defence stopped. Individuals arrested and detained were released. Muslim Igbo with no knowledge of western education were made mediators between federal soldiers and the civil populace. Mallam G, Audu, and others were at the helm of affairs ensuring peaceful relations between federal soldiers and civilian population at Nsukka and 345 Enugu Ezike in particular during the war. Non-Muslims summed up Mallam’s action as sabotage. Their contentions were as follows: Mallam reported the village to federal soldiers; he provided soldiers with information that led to the invasion of his village group; Mallam did not report any harassment to Biafran authorities but to federal soldiers. Mallam felt that officials of the Biafran government would not treat his case fairly and took it to the federal authorities. Mallam’s case became an example of the disloyalty of Igbo Muslims to Biafra and her dream for political independence from Nigeria. One outcome of the war was that it brought Igbo Muslim to the limelight and led to their forging ties with Muslim soldiers from places beyond the boundaries of Igboland. Local reaction to allegations of sabotage by Muslims was demonstrated a year later when Audu’s house was broken into and his wife and a son killed. This retribution, blamed on the Biafra Freedom Fighters (BOFF), terrified Muslims in Enugu Ezike who moved out of the community close to the federal military quarters. Any Muslim threatened, maltreated, or killed was blamed on BOFF, while any non-Muslim attacked in similar circumstance was blamed on federal soldiers. The remaining months of the war found Muslims of Enugu Ezike, Ibagwa, and Enohia gripped with fear as both federal soldiers and BOFF or Biafran soldiers engaged in retaliatory killings. The federal soldiers avenged the death of a Muslim supposed to be killed by BOFF members on non-Muslim 345 Sheikh Saliu Abugu, b. 1958, interview, Enugu Ezike, February 2006. 120

civilians and BOFF avenged any non-Muslim Igbo killed by federal soldiers on Igbo Muslim civilians. Non-Muslim Igbo were worried that Igbo Muslims would tell their secrets to federal soldiers while federal soldiers worried that non-Muslim Igbo were Biafran spies sent after them. Ahmed Omeje from Ibagwa recalled that “when federal soldiers granted us protection non-Muslims saw it and returned to the village. Occasionally the soldiers will catch them and ac346 cuse them of being Biafrans…” In Port Harcourt, remarked Alhaji Ali, “some who ran to Nigerian soldiers were killed. Most people remained in their homes because they were afraid that if they run to Nigerian soldiers and Biafra eventually wins, they would not be allowed to return to their homes. Some who ran 347 to Nigerian soldiers were killed.” One common fear that Igbo Muslims lived with was the fear that Biafra could win the war and then exterminate them. The relative security some groups of Muslims enjoyed with the Nigerian soldiers and the regular supply of food materials failed to extinguish their anguish 348 over their eventual survival. Towns in northern Igboland, on the Biafra-Nigeria border, fared better than the Biafran hinterland. Nigerian soldiers provided protection as well for indigenous Muslims in Alor Agu, Ibagwa-aka, and Obukpa. The report from Alor Agu reads: We moved to Kogi State. We spent a month there before the police moved us to Idah Police Barracks where we spent 6 months. From there soldiers of the Nigerian army transported us back to Nsukka as refugees. We were settled at St. Paul’s primary school. Other Igbo who crossed the battle lines to the Northern side for shelter were also moved there. That was where I experienced for the first time chinchi and kwrikwata (ashama)… After three months at St Paul’s the army moved us back to Enugu Ezike… We remained there until the end of 349 the war.” There were reports from a section of the Muslim population of Alor Agu who sought refuge at Idah that the water there caused diarrhoea in their children. They were moved back to their village where Nigerian soldiers provided some security against molestation. Soldiers on occasion accompanied some to the 346 347 348 349

Ahmed Omeje, interview cited. Alhaji Ali, interview cited. Hassan Issah, interview cited. Alhaji Idris Okonkwo, b. 1953, interview, Nsukka, May 2003. 121

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farm to collect their produce. At Ibagwa-aka Muslim soldiers joined indigenous Muslims at the mosques during prayers; strengthening their sense of community in addition to providing protection. There was no separate mosque for 351 the combatants making it practical and useful to worship with the indigenes. Aminatu Musa from Obukpa who sent her three children to Kaduna during the war had since lost touch with them, believing that they got missing in the 352 process of acquiring Qur’anic education. The three years of the war affected access to education for Muslim children. Adolescent girls felt this disadvantage more. By the time the war ended few had time for schooling as social pressure 353 to marry mounted. Audu Nwinyi was among those who adopted a Christian name during the war in order to safeguard his life. Relationship with non-Muslims in Obukpa was very strained during the hostilities, he noted. Ajuma Abu, one of the young adults who sought refuge from the raging conflict at Akpanya in North Central Nigeria, found the Muslim community there distrustful of Igbo refugees. He was suspected of coming to implement a secrete Igbo plan. This put him at risk of being mobbed. He was spared by the intervention of a Nigerian 354 soldier who first asked him to recite the Qur’an and told the mob to leave him. Enohia and Afikpo Muslims felt differently about the war. They confronted unsympathetic Nigerian soldiers. Retelling the accounts he heard, Sheikh Idris Al Hassan mentioned how “Muslims at Afikpo were victims of their Muslim 355 brothers’ bullets, which made some to abandon their religion.” The federal onslaught on Afikpo did not recognize the Muslim community in the town. They suffered as much from federal soldiers as they did from Biafran soldiers. There were a number of desertions from Islam by irate Muslims because of the federal soldiers’ onslaught on Afikpo. Igbo Muslims had so much to say about Biafra and its ambition for self-rule. First, they cited her anti-Islam policy as what undermined her dream for sovereignty. In their perception, the probability that in the event of victory, Biafra would emerge as an oil state was an unacceptable prospect in the Arab world. Sheikhs Idoko and Al Hassan gave this as the reason for the strong Arab sup-

350 351 352 353 354 355 122

Alhaji Yakubu, b. 1955, chief imam, interview, Enugu Ezike, January 2006. Ahmed Omeje, interview cited. Aminatou Musa, b. 1937, interview, Obukpa, January 2006. Memuna Eze, b. 1956, interview, Nsukka March 2003. Ajuma Abu, b. 1938, interview, Orba, January 2006. Skeikh Idris Al Hassan, Director, Islamic Centre, Enugu, interview, May 2003.

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port for the Nigerian government during the crisis. The ghost of Biafra would appear to have survived in various forms in Igbo Muslim consciousness for in 2003, three decades after the war, an elderly Igbo Muslim remarked that Igbo Muslims construed Odumegwu Ojukwu’s presidential ambition in the present 357 fourth republic as a threat to Islam in Igboland. There were isolated cases of conversions to Islam during the war. These conversions were fuelled by starvation and the fear of intimidation and humiliation. Persons who converted did so to guarantee their protection from the Nigerian soldiers whose assault on Biafran civilians provoked international out358 cry. Ibrahim who was raised in Northern Nigeria where he escaped the 1966 killings with his family recalled his family’s ordeal during the war: We lived in Sokoto before the war. My mother pleaded with my father to take Islam but he refused. When the 1966 killing started, our Hausa maid, Hadija, hid us in their compound for five days. Later, we escaped to Zaria and from there came home. My father joined the (Biafran) army. My mother and the children lived in the bush. We were plagued with hunger. Two of my younger siblings suffered from kwashiorkor. My mother sold all she had until she was left with a single wrapper. She washed it at night, covering herself with rags, and wore it again in the morning. It was then I started nursing the idea of be356 Idoko reminded me that Egyptian pilots bombed Biafra during the war and rendered other military services.

357 Imam Hassan Omeh Musa, b. 1937, interview, Obukpa, May 2003. 358 See “Operation Calabar,” Presbyterian Record (Scotland), December 1967; The Times, London, April 25, 1968; For instances of federal brutality on Biafra civilians, see John Jorre, The Nigerian Civil War; Egodi Uchendu, Women and Conflict, and “Recollections of childhood memories on the Nigerian Civil War,” Africa, 77, (2007). A report submitted to the UN Human Rights Commission in 2004 reads: “… In the villages predominantly populated by Biafran citizens, there was utter destruction of all structures for human habitation, livestock and farms. Witnesses mentioned villages around Onitsha, Owerri and Nsukka where this method of extermination was extensively used. … In most areas where troops of the Federal Authority entered, peoples of Biafran (most Igbo) origin were loaded on to trucks and taken out of the towns. It was explained that these people were sent into jungles where the older ones were assembled and shot, and their bodies were left to be disposed of by the wild beasts that roam the jungles. The younger men were sorted out and posted to the units of the Federal Army where they were used as cannon fodder in attacks on Biafran positions. It was testified to me that the children were sent to the Northern region to be sold into slavery, and the women were made to serve in the camps of the Federal troops, where they were ravished.” (“The Violations of Human and Civil Rights of Ndi Igbo in the Federation of Nigeria,” Submission to UN Human Rights Commission (2004), 38.) 123

coming a Muslim. I told myself: “If my parents were Muslims, I would not have suffered like this.” Our neighbors who were Muslims did not suffer like we did. They remained in their houses… My father’s property and buildings in Sokoto were confiscated… We lost the docu359 ments and could not get them back. Other seeds of conversion were sown during the war. The actors were the soldiers of the Nigerian army who appropriated Igbo women in conquered zones 360 as wives. When the war ended in January 1970, a new scenario played itself out in the form of extensive abductions of Igbo women by Nigerian soldiers in celebration of Nigeria’s victory over Biafra. This wartime inter-ethnic and inter-religious marriages laid the foundation for conversion to Islam of some of the Igbo women so married. In retrospect, Dauda Ojobe judged the career of Nigerian soldiers in Igboland, “most of whom were Muslims,” to have been injurious to the cause of Islam. The misgivings bred much bitterness against Is361 lam and the Hausa.

Reconstruction and Rehabilitation: The Mbaise affair The Nigerian army crushed the Biafra resistance in January 1970 bringing the thirty months civil war to an end. The Igbo recognized forthwith the splitting of Nigeria into twelve states and of Eastern Nigeria into three states: East Central State (comprising the Igbo homeland east of the Niger River), Southeast State (for the Ibibio, Efik, and Ekoi), and Rivers State (the Ijaw and marginal Igbo groups that have since denounced their Igbo identity). There was, in addition, the emergence all over Igboland of military barracks as a check on further recourse to arms by Biafra. Post-war reconstruction of Igboland and the rehabilitation of survivors commenced almost immediately after the war. These programmes were intended to ease the plight of war victims and to manage their restoration to peacetime. From 1970 the federal government through the East Central State government channeled what it called relief materials—food and drugs—to Igbo survivors of the conflict. It also promised in a national broadcast that it “shall make all necessary arrangements to ensure the security of all Ni359 Mallam Ibrahim, b. 1950, interview, Umuahia, February 2006. Ibrahim converted to Islam shortly after the war.

360 Dauda Ojobe, Hassan Issah, and Alhaji Ali, interviews cited. Also, Ken Saro Wiwa, On a Darkling Plain: An Account of the Nigerian Civil War (Port Harcourt: Saros International Publishers, 1989), 210; and Egodi Uchendu, Women and conflict, 156-7. 361 Dauda Ojobe, interview cited. 124

gerians wherever they choose to reside and take all measures to enhance recon362 ciliation and national unity.” The federal efforts were buttressed by additional assistance from few state governors, the first of which was from Major Hassan Katsina of North Central Nigeria who welcomed those Igbo who fled Northern Nigeria in the wake of the 1966 massacres back to the region. Clearly noticeable from this time on was a south-north and north-south movement of civilians. Persons who moved into Igboland (East Central State) did so for a wide range of reasons including religious considerations as the Mbaise affair, which will be discussed in this chapter, attests and also for trade interests as the Nsukka incident will show. Substantial numbers were government employees and soldiers whose relocation was officially determined. There were in addition smaller influxes of destitutes, coming from as far as Chad and Niger Republic, who subsisted as beggars. Thus, the end of the war found the abandoned Hausa settlements receiving back former settlers and welcoming new ones. Additional settlements emerged and were named Ama-Hausa, also 363 meaning Hausa settlement. Most residents of these settlements were unskilled persons, traders, mobile cobblers, and tailors. Rich migrants lived outside the strangers’ enclosures and among the Igbo. Their tenancy was of import to Igbo landlords who needed the rents for personal rehabilitation after the 364 war. 362 Federal Military Government, “Ending the War: The Last Lap.” Broadcast to the nation by His Excellency Major-General Yakubu Gowon, Head of the Federal Military Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces (July 1968), p. 9. Many Igbo who were displaced from Northern Nigeria by the 1966 massacres returned to the north to resuscitate their abandoned careers and their business activities. They were joined by other war survivors needing self-rehabilitation, but confronted by job-squeeze in Eastern Nigeria. 363 As explained in chapter two, the settlements housed migrants from Northern and North Central Nigeria and had more residents who were Muslims than non-Muslims. 364 The plight of the Igbo after the war cannot be overemphasized. The end of the war found the majority wretched. This wretchedness undermined for most their ethnic pride. Thus, in the need to recover from the trauma of the war, the Igbo found themselves amenable to ethnic groups and ideologies they previously were ambivalent about. For an account of post-war Igboland see, Paul Obi-Ani, Post-Civil War Social and Economic Reconstruction of Igboland, 1970–1983 (Enugu: Milkon Press, 1998). Post-war Hausa settlements functioned just as in the pre-war period. Each settlement appointed a representative who was the leader of the group and functioned as its intermediary in matters with the host community. Through him information was passed to and fro between migrants and their hosts. As more migrants moved outside the settlements to live among the Igbo, specific towns like Enugu and Umuahia had in the last three decades leaders who lived outside the settlement. Thus, in Enugu is found the Sarikin Enugu, a cattle trader, overseeing the welfare of all Hausa in Enugu and not necessarily only those found at the Ama-Hausa. 125

1970 marked a turning point in the journey of Islam to Igboland. It was the year when Islamic organizations from Northern and Western Nigeria and also from outside Nigeria began to formally extend their activities to Igboland. They articulated another trajectory for the rehabilitation of Igbo survivors of the civil war that combined material with spiritual rehabilitation. The first incident occurred in Mbaise shortly after the war and was the result of a partnership between Hausa soldiers, two Saudi Arabian missionaries, and a couple of Igbo traders recently converted to Islam. Muslims from Mbaise date the beginning of Islam in their town to 1974, the year Muslim visitors from Hausaland and Saudi Arabia arrived in the town in the company of the two newly converted Mbaise Muslims. Oral evidence from Mbaise, however, shows that efforts towards in365 troducing Islam in the town began in 1972. Isa Ekeji recalled this event in Mbaise: Islam came through Mallam Usman Iwuala when Hausa soldiers came here after the war. They allied with Mallam Iwuala to introduce Islam in Mbaise. Through gifts and preaching, they gathered together some twenty-two people comprising Igbo and Hausa. I was one of 366 them … The missionary project to Mbaise, initiated by Hausa soldiers in the Nigerian army, received the support of the Nigerian Supreme Islamic Council. The Council approved an application for a mosque in Mbaise for onward submis367 sion to Mecca. The Mbaise mosque was built between 1974 and 1976 with 368 fund from Saudi Arabia. The construction was done by Mbaise converts to Islam with the assistance of Muslim youths doing their national youth service programme in the town. Alhaji Bugaje, president of the Muslim Society in Minna, Niger State, supervised the project. Land for the mosque was purchased from Chief Ogujiuba in return for which his son received a scholarship for uni365 Information on Islam in Mbaise came from interviews held in Mbaise in January and February 2006 with: Mallam Isa Ekeji, b. c. 1938, (converted to Islam in 1974); Mallam Isa Ugiri, b. c. 1931, imam of Mbaise, (converted to Islam in 1966); Mrs. Maimuna Ugiri; Mallam Mohammed Ibeh, b. 1959, (converted to Islam in 1996); Nze Desmond Njoku, b. c. 1927, traditional Prime Minister of Mbaise; Mr. A. Obube, (converted to Islam in 1977 but later recanted); Mr. A. Ibe, b. c. 1941, (converted to Islam in 1975 and recanted in 1987). 366 Mallam Isa Ekeji, interview cited. 367 A second mosque was approved for Calabar. 368 There is some uncertainly on the exact dates for the building of the mosque. Another interviewee mentioned 1975 to 1976. 126

versity education abroad. The traditional council of Mbaise was fully involved in the negotiation for the introduction of Islam in the town as the report below indicates: We had a series of cabinet meetings when they came especially when they asked to buy land in our community so soon after the war. We realized that they were only interested in religion and we welcomed them. Their chief agent was Mallam Iwuala. They came soon after the war with so much money. Seeing that hunger was thriving due to the just concluded war, people easily gave in but later withdrew when 369 there was much consequences and death. The two years that the Muslim missionaries from Saudi Arabia spent in Mbaise saw the construction of houses for converts and the award of scholarships to their children. The missionaries focused as much on the financial rehabilitation of their converts as on their spiritual wellbeing. Thus, the attraction to Islam by persons who had lost homes and property in the civil war was inevitable. The timing was most appropriate for the success of Islamic propagation. Many war victims were receptive to the new philosophy that simultaneously promised eternal salvation and immediate rehabilitation in war-ravaged Igboland. Testimonies from early converts to Islam in Mbaise indicated that they received diverse assistance including the provision of capital for trade and other business ventures. They also could access such scarce commodities like building materials. A former convert shared the motivation for his conversion. This story throws light on the social circumstances of the people after the war: I went to war and came back extremely wretched. I first resorted to stealing fowls but as I saw a member living very well from gifts, food items, and money from these Muslims, I paid him a visit at night to know his secret and he told me. The next day I professed… I joined to help myself with daily bread and money to start a business. I left when I achieved some of my aims and after seeing how they were mercilessly killing and rendering useless defaulting members with sophisticated charms. Efforts to propagate Islam in Mbaise fizzled out within four years but not until an estimated one hundred or more converts had been won to Islam through generous gifts and other forms of financial assistance given at a time of dire 369 Nze Desmond Njoku, interview cited. 127

need. The abandonment of the missionary work in Mbaise was linked to the mysterious disappearance of Mallam Iwuala while on a trip to Northern Nigeria. Mbaise Muslim converts, many of whom eventually turned away from Islam and back to Christianity or to Igbo religion, claimed that Iwuala appropriated for himself much of the fund entrusted to him for the mosque project. Iwuala was not the only member of the young Muslim community of Mbaise who mysteriously disappeared in 1976. A couple of other converts also suffered similar fate and were assumed dead by their former companions. Another victim of the unfortunate backlash was Mallam Ibekwe who developed sudden mental disorder after selling, without the permission of the sponsors, a lorry load of cement meant for the construction of the mosque. The suicide, by hanging, of Mallam Johnson, another early convert, was also ascribed to these events. These retributions, according to the interviewees, occurred after the completion of the mosque and were all connected to the crime of misappropriation of funds intended for the building of a mosque, a hospital, an Islamic center, a primary school, and a recreation center. In the end only the mosque was built. The bizarre deaths, disappearances, and disorders had the most negative impact on the growth of Islam in the town, scaring away converts and deterring others from joining the group after only three years in which Islam flourished in Mbaise. According to the imam of Mbaise, decline set in “when there was no 370 more fund to finance the people to Mecca.” The embattled Muslim community of Mbaise renewed efforts in the 1990s to revive Islam and to seek for support outside the boundaries of Igboland. A twoman delegation was sent to the Islamic Education Trust in Niger State with the complaint that they “were ignored, marginalized, rejected and were left in 371 bushy, unhealthy and undeveloped environment…” The delegation requested, among other things, for assistance in completing various projects that would further the spread of Islam in Mbaise. The outcome of this is at present unknown except the attempts from within and outside Nigeria to woo back former converts. In 2006, the mosque keeper summarized the long-term consequences of these events as follows: “Imagine, for several years this mosque has been here there are just few converts. Now our people want to turn it into a 372 town hall.”

370 Mallam Isah Ugiri, interview cited. 371 “Letter from the Centre for Islamic Development Mbaise to the Director, Islamic Education Trust, Minna, Niger State,” 16 May 1999.

372 Mallam Mohammed Ibeh, interview cited. 128

Extending Islam to Nsukka Town The indigenous Muslim population in northern Igboland received a boost from the federal contingent, composed mostly of Muslim soldiers, quartered in the area during the war. Although some Muslims deny the preponderance of Muslim soldiers in the Nigerian army during the war, it is nonetheless upheld that the bulk of the federal soldiers in Biafra were Muslims drawn from different parts of Northern and North Central Nigeria and from Western Nigeria as well. Doi writes how the presence of Nigerian soldiers contributed in creating awareness for Islam in Eastern Nigeria: Another factor which has helped further Islamic expansion since the war is the presence of Muslims in the Nigerian Army. Those areas in Igboland which had not seen any mosque building or any form of Islamic activities before now had an opportunity to witness Muslims praying and practicing the tenets of Islam in the Army mosques temporarily erected by the soldiers through the length and breadth of East 373 Central state wherever they encamped. Nigerian soldiers in Igboland attracted to themselves persons from Northern and North Central Nigeria who came to service the federal barracks that dotted Igboland and others who came to trade in the war ravaged communities. Continuous influxes were partly instrumental in consolidating the little gains already made in Eastern Nigeria. One notable example of this occurred in the village of Nsukka in Nsukka Division at the instance of Metumbi, a Muslim yam trader from Jukun. The presence before the war of Muslims of Nupe, Yoruba, and Hausa origins at Enugu Ezike, Ibagwa, Obukpa, and Alor Agu did not facilitate the spread of Islam in the rest of Nsukka Division including Nsukka village, which was reasonably close to the areas already familiar with Islam. The village of Nsukka now trace the introduction of Islam to the arrival of federal soldiers in the First Division of the Nigerian Army in July 1967 to suppress Biafra secession from the Nigerian federation. The soldiers, were within four months of their arrival, followed by Hausa traders. By this time they had won their first major victory over Biafra in the defeat of Biafran forces at Opi and 374 the subsequent establishment at Nsukka of a barrack for federal soldiers. 373 A. Doi, Islam in Nigeria, p. 174. 374 See, A. Madiebo, The Nigerian Revolution and the Biafran War (Enugu: Fourth Dimension, 1980); O. Obasanjo, My Command (Ibadan: Heinemann, 1980); Bernard Odogwu, No Place to Hide: Crises and Conflicts inside Biafra (Enugu: Fourth Dimension, 1985), and J. O. G. Achuzia, Requiem Biafra (Enugu: Fourth Dimension, 1986). 129

Mallam Ibrahim Eze, one of few Igbo Muslims who fought in the war on the Biafran side recalled: It was through the Nigerian army that Islam came to Nsukka town… It was when the Nigerian soldiers came, accompanied by Muslim traders who were buying people’s property looted by the soldiers. Muslim traders would buy looted items from the soldiers and transport them to their bases outside Igboland. They were visiting the soldiers 375 at Nsukka on and off. But eventually they settled permanently. From the accounts collected, items looted by soldiers were disposed through traders. In the village of Nsukka, which earlier than most of Igboland came under federal control, non-Igbo traders involved in selling looted wares enjoyed a long career. One trader who became famous from buying and selling booty at Nsukka during the war was Alhaji Useni. It was also during the civil war that Alhaji Usman, a Jukun and World War II veteran popularly known as Metumbi, came to Nsukka. When the civil war ended in 1970, Metumbi switched pro376 fession and became a food contractor. It was in the process of this that he embarked on the self-assigned task of enhancing yam distribution in Nsukka in order to solve the troubles he faced as a food contractor: The monopoly of the yam trade by Igbo traders, which oftentimes caused scarcity of yam. He succeeded in starting the popular yam depot (ozo ji) at Afia ogige market in Nsukka in 1972. Igbo yam traders were few and formed a clique that held dominance in the market and controlled the price of yam. Since the monopoly of the yam trade worked both against non-indigenes as much as it did to the indigenes, Metumbi’s campaign to reverse it had supporters from both groups. His employed a simple tactic to achieve his goal. Coming from Zakibiam—one of the major yam production centers in North Central Nigeria—he convinced traders of Zakibiam to send yams to Nsukka market. Thus began the massive exportation of yam from Zakibiam, in Jukunland, to Nsukka village and this has continued till date. The yam war, for his meddling sparked opposition from indigenous yam traders, saw the influx of an unspecified number of Muslim traders into Nsukka from North Central and Northern Nigeria. These Muslim traders would in due course become agents for the conversion of some Igbo traders to Islam. 375 Ibrahim Eze, interview cited. 376 Food contracting was a lucrative business during the Nigeria–Biafra war. Nigerian and Biafran armies relied on food contractors to feed their armies: Egodi Uchendu, Women and Conflict, 150-52. 130

Metumbi’s interference with the yam trade incensed Igbo yam traders whose trade became threatened by the exceptional inflow of yam into the market. Igbo traders took the case to court but it was not resolved for a reasonable length of time until Metumbi himself died. While the case lasted, yams from Zakibiam continued to flood Nsukka market. They were cheaper and more in 377 demand than varieties sold by Igbo traders. In the mid 1980s the yam market, now on a new site assigned by the Nsukka local government, came under the domination of traders from North Central Nigeria and also utilized a retinue of middlemen from North Central Nigeria. It redefined the position of Igbo traders who thus became the major retailers and found themselves at a lower level of the marketing ring. With the ascendancy of traders of North Central Nigeria, the yam trade was reorganized and supervised by a Sarikin Doya, market chief, who controlled that section of the market as a semi-independent unit of the Nsukka market. As the number of the Jukun, Hausa, and other non-Igbo traders increased, Muslim traders erected a small temporary structure for the daily prayers. Few indigenes, according to the imam of Nsukka central mosque, have 378 converted to Islam through the agency of migrant Muslim traders. However, the expanding population of migrant Muslim traders in itself continues to boost the small number of Igbo Muslims in Nsukka. In 2002 the makeshift mosque was extended to accommodate a classroom for Qur’anic education where preschool children of Muslim traders would receive religious education in the evenings. From the onset, the Sarikin Doya recruited teachers from Northern Nigeria for the Qur’anic school. Subsequently, the school supplemented with Muslim corpers from various parts of the county doing their National Youth Service Corp programme at Nsukka. Occasionally, Muslim students of University of Nigeria helped out when regular teachers were few. Since inception, all teachers associated with the school were male except the school’s assistant 379 headmistress.

Enohia after the war Enohia Muslim community suffered the fate of other Igbo Muslims during the civil war. Enohia counted among its losses during the war, the destruction of 377 Ibrahim Eze, interview cited. 378 Ibid. 379 Alhaji Sanni Ibrahim Idoko, b. 1957, interview, Nsukka, September 2003, and Miss Sefiyat Abdullahi, b. 1977, interview, Nsukka, September 2003. Ibrahim Eze and Hassan Omeh Musa, interviws cited. 131

its mosque and damages to its school. During post-war reconstruction, the nursery school was reopened. A primary section was started and there were plans for introducing secondary education. The secondary school eventually called School of Arabic and Islamic Studies resumed academic activity in 1973 even while the buildings awaited full rehabilitation from war damages. The school curriculum was communicated only in Arabic. There was no single subject in English. From 1980, Saudi Arabia through the World Muslim League became its chief sponsor. On occasion financial assistance was received from other Muslim countries especially Kuwait and Egypt. The Saudi government financed the renovation of the school and sent teachers who doubled as mission380 aries to teach at the school. Ibrahim Nwagui was the first director the school had. Following his death in 1975 at Owerri, his brother, Sheikh Daud Nwagui, served briefly as the school’s director until the arrival of Sheikh Muhammad Amanaturllah with a team of teachers from Saudi Arabia in 1981. The school became affiliated with “Rabita Makkatan Al-Mukkaramah” in 381 Saudi Arabia and was administered according to the Sharia law. Students of the school were subjected to full Sharia regulations in the school, said a former 382 graduate. The missionary goal of the school was neither in doubt nor played down by its staff members. It functioned primarily as a recruiting ground for Islam and concurrently as a training facility for future missionaries who would propagate Islam in their home communities. Said a staff member: By 1974 the Arabic school was admitting Muslims and non-Muslims with the hope to convert them later. Pressure was mounted on nonMuslims to accept Islam, which some of them did. Those who refused 383 to embrace Islam were withdrawn from the school. The Arabic curriculum of the school was modified years later to include the English language and Mathematics. In 2001, after twenty years’ service and just the year after the senior secondary school certificate examination was first written in the school, the Saudi Arabian teachers and Muhammad Amanaturllah, the director, departed. Sheikh Maama, a Togolese Muslim, took over as director. He gave the school its name and introduced mid-term breaks and the use 384 of school uniforms by students. Maama employed new teachers with diversi380 381 382 383 384 132

Sheikh Haroun Aja and Sheikh Idoko, interviews cited. Alhaji Dauda Arua and Mr. Emmanuel Ude, interviews cited. Mr. Okpani Oko, interview, Nsukka, March 2006. Alhaji Dauda Arua, interview cited. Additional information on the school came from Okpani Oko, interview cited; Haruna

fied academic backgrounds. The school’s curriculum was also modified and included the following subjects: Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Literature in English, and Igbo language. The diversification of subjects set the school on equal footing with regular secondary schools in Nigeria. In part it heightened its advantage over other schools because it offered, in addition to basic skills acquired, knowledge of Arabic language. Even with the diversified curriculum, the performance of the pupils in non-Arabic subjects was relatively poor and this was assumed to derive from the overemphasis on Arabic and Islamic stud385 ies. “We studied both Western and Qur’anic subjects,” recalled a former student of the school; “the subjects were Qur’anic study, Qur’anic exposition, 386 prophetic traditions, jurisprudence etc.” Until 2003, the school required students to pass all subjects, minimum of sixteen per term, before promotion to the next class. In spite of the need for reforms to streamline the school along the lines of regular secondary schools, the financial position of the school again became unstable after the tenure of Sheikh Amanturllah. The school administration continued nonetheless continued with the chief goal of preparing their graduates for studies abroad in Muslim countries. The diversification of subjects did not dramatically change the Arabic/Islamic focus of the curriculum. The number of subjects taught in Arabic remained higher than those taught in English. On graduation former students of the school first served as auxiliary teachers, Mashaya, for a year or two before continuing with further studies elsewhere. To Okpani Oko, an alumni and former staff of the school, the policy that disalSule (jnr.), interview, Enugu, May 2003; Jameel Okoro, interview, Asaba, October 2005; Abubakar Anidu Shuaib, interview, Nsukka, April 2010. All four were graduates of the school. 385 Staff and students of the school observed that during the tenure of Sheikh Daud Nwagui, from 1975 until 1981, the school’s performance was poor. One index used in measuring this was the state of its student population. This was reported to have consistently declined until 1981 when the missionary-teachers from Saudi Arabia arrived. It would not be such a hard guess to determine other causes of the poor state of the school between 1975 and 1981: the focus on Arabic language and Islamic studies did not appeal to a wide range of parents. A good number of Muslims themselves wanted their children to acquire general competence in regular subjects that was necessary for employment in the country, which the pro-Qur’anic studies’ curriculum deterred. During the tenure of Mohammed Amanturllah, academic performance remained poor. His Saudi Arabian teachers were best suited for teaching Arabic language and Islamic religion and not the general subjects offered in Nigerian secondary schools, knowledge of which would make graduates of the school competitive and qualified for work and for further studies in Nigeria using certificates issued by the school. 386 Haruna Sule, jnr, interview cited. 133

lows Nigerian graduates of the school from taking up employment in the Muslim nations where they are sent for their university education, is a major 387 setback in their association with the school. Dauda Arua described the school 388 as “the fruit of Saudi Arabian labour.” On its merit, the school has recorded a high success rate with respect to its missionary goal for nearly all formerly non-Muslim pupils admitted to it conclude their studies as professing Muslims. The provision of free education and free clothing to students, said Sheikh Haroun Aja, “has led many parents to send their children to the school.” He added “it is also through these children that the minds of their parents are won for Is389 lam.”

Other new grounds Most towns and villages in Igboland made contact with Islam after the war. The introduction of Islam in Ohafia, Abia State, was linked to the establishment of an army camp in the town after the war. Earliest conversion to Islam was 390 dated, however, to 1979. Nnewi, Awka, and Amawbia all in Anambra State gained their own converts from about this date. Pre-civil war Muslim migrants to Nnewi kept off the way of the local people. One interviewee remarked: “They kept to themselves, concentrated on themselves, and did not interact with the people. They were not like the Igbo who if they live near you, would 391 come and make friends.” The situation changed with the arrival in 1976 of the pioneer advocate, Mallam Bello Sambas, from Adamawa. Mallam Bello consequently became both the Sarikin Hausawa and the first imam of the Hausa Muslim community in Nnewi. The Hausa community that emerged at Awka after the war was composed of soldiers quartered in the town at the end of the hostilities. The reputation for drunkenness and aggressive behavior, which frequently resulted in fights, has survived them. In the years following the end of the war, this core community received more migrants, mostly traders 392 from Northern Nigeria.

387 388 389 390 391 392 134

Okpani Okoh, interview cited. Alhaji Dauda Arua, interview cited. Sheikh Haroun Aja, interview cited. Chief Ani Nwaoke, b. c. 1930, interview, Akanu Ohafia, February 2006. Chief Nnamdi Obi, interview, Nnewi, January 2004. Christopher Nwagbo, b. c. 1936, interview, Awka, February 2004.

CHAPTER 4 CONTACTS AND CONVERSIONS: THE PROPAGATION OF ISLAM IN IGBOLAND

A major concern of Muslim clerics in Igboland is how to win the Igbo to Islam. Igbo Muslims and Muslim migrants are very conscious of the ambivalence to Islam in Igboland. A youth from Osun State on national service in Enugu State, in 2005, posted this comment in a magazine: When we got here we discovered that the majority of the people (8090%) are non-Muslims and the problem is that the awareness is not enough. Most people do not really know what Islam is all about. They are still hostile to Islam. So, we should take it upon ourselves, as serving corps members, to ensure that we disseminate the message of Islam by telling people what Islam entails so that people who want to 393 embrace Islam will have to embrace it … In responding to an interview question on the toughest challenge Muslim clerics face in Igboland, Sheikh Adam Idoko responded: I think our tough challenge is to remove the misconceptions about Islam. Some of them are worldwide; some are as a result of propaganda. And to establish to them that Islam is a peaceful religion [that] eschews in totality violence, crisis, unrest and other social vices. The other challenge is how do we raise fund because majority of the Muslims in Igboland are poor… [We need] to raise fund to establish such facilities that can enable us to carry out Da’awah and Islamic pro394 pagation … The various endeavors at propagating Islam in Igboland especially from the 1980s will be discussed in this chapter. A remarkable attempt in this direction was the posting of a cleric of Ghanaian origin from Saudi Arabia to Enugu in 1982. Until then, migrant Muslims devised ways of reaching the Igbo with Islam. One important category of Hausa migrants who utilized their profession as a medium for conversion of the Igbo to Islam is the cattle dealers who operated through the cattle markets. Although a few comments have been made in 393 “How I see Islam in the East,” Al-Huda Magazine, May 2005, p. 12. 394 “Interview,” Al-Huda Magazine, May 2005, p. 28. 135

previous chapters about them, their contributions towards entrenching Islam in Igboland require more attention and will be told alongside their economic importance.

Hausa traders and cattle markets Cattle markets in Igboland dates to 1914 but their numbers expanded after the Nigeria-Biafra war. It was the practice of cattle dealers to import large heads of cattle, which were driven down by herders who pastured the animals in Igboland, until sold. Since the Igbo did not rear cattle on any significant scale, the cattle business run by Muslim traders from Northern Nigeria was very necessary because it addressed the demand for meat and related products in Igboland. The diffusion, after the war, of cattle traders and cattle markets in Igbo395 land helped the cause of Islam. Post-war cattle merchants rank among the chief propagators of Islam in Eastern Nigeria, even though they deny this in396 sisting that they “came purposely for business and not for evangelization.” Nonetheless, they provided needed advertisement for Islam and used the cattle business as a site for conversion. The practice of having among them clerics, who coordinated their religious welfare, meant that counseling services were readily available for persons who wanted to know about Islam and those who showed inclination to convert. The cattle market at Lokpanta in Umuchieze Local Government Area of Abia State is symptomatic of the cattle business and the cattle markets found in all major towns and some remote places in Igboland. The Lokpanta cattle market has a long history and can be traced back to about the time that the cattle trade developed in Abakaliki in 1914. Two bands of herders left Abakalili. One 397 group led by Oseni, who years later became the Sarikin of Umuahia, arrived Isiama Afara-ukwu in Umuahia; while the second group moved to Uzuakoli. It was claimed that at Umuahia the warrant chief Wariaku Ngwuli gave Oseni and his herders a place to settle, an action that was approved by the village eld398 ers. Communication with the migrants was through interpreters and in 395 This is also true of other parts of Eastern Nigeria. The first convert to Islam in Uyo did so through his involvement in the cattle business. According to his narrative, his business mentor convinced him to become a Muslim if he wants to forge ahead in the business. Alhaji Baba Jaro, b. 1951, interview, Uyo, May 2009. 396 Kabiru Hudu, interview, Lokpanta, February 2006. 397 “Owerri Province, Hausa Settlements,” File ON 3851, RIVPROF 8/9/321, National Archives, Enugu. 398 Oral data on the cattle market at Lokpanta came from Chief Godwin Ngwuli, Alhaji 136

Pidgin English, which, according to various narratives, Oseni could fairly converse in. Their market, commonly called Garki, was situated in the land opposite the present premises of Golden Guinea Breweries in Umuahia. There were also claims of influxes into the settlement in Umuahia from Uzuakoli and other towns. Two Hausa settlements were recorded in colonial records for Umuahia. Oseni led one, and the other was listed as a satellite of Okigwe. Most probably the two groups merged at a point. The list of the Hausa settlements in Okigwe Division in 1921 showed just one Hausa community existing in Umuahia Township, headed by Oseni who in 1923 was a member of the Native Court. He was allowed to sit in the court when cases involving members of the Hausa com399 munity were tried. The same year Oseni was requested by the Resident of Owerri Province, Mr. Watt, to return to Northern Nigeria “for making trouble,” the nature of which was not disclosed. The matter must have been resolved for Oseni remained the Sarikin of Umuahia until his death in 1943 when the office passed to his son, Adamu Oseni, but not without “some unrest in the Hausa 400 community,” observed the Resident of Owerri Province, Mr. Mylius. After the Nigeria–Biafra war, and the gradual return of non-Igbo traders to Umuahia, the cattle market resumed operations but changed its location severally. Its last move was right to the center of the town where it remained until Umuahia became the capital of the newly created Abia State in 1991. In 1994, Ike Nwosu, the military governor of Abia State, moved the market out of the Maikano Mohammed, Alhaji Suleiman Mohammed, Mohammed Usman, Alhaji Ibrahim Yusuf, Mr. J. Ekeleme, Alhaji Mohammed Bugu, Sariki Hayatu Adamu, Alhaji Buba Abdullahi Kedemure, Alhaji Umaru Jalingo, Kabiru Hudu, Mr. Innocent Okeke, Mrs. Veronica Nwoga, His Highness Odogwu Eze. 399 “Status of Hausa chiefs,” File AHODIST 14/1/436, National Archives, Enugu. 400 Ibid. Since the colonial records failed to report the exact nature of the unrest, one may assume that it was connected with rival claims to headship of the community because, shortly after, a rival Sarikin emerged in the person of Momo Nakare. Nakare and Adamu Oseni had a protracted dispute over who should be recognized as Sarikin Hausa in colonial Umuahia Township, at the time, the main cattle trading and dispersal center in Eastern Nigeria. Counter petitions on their quarrel were addressed to the Acting Resident of Owerri Province in the 1950s. Their contest periodically escalated into violence. The Acting Resident viewed a petition by Adamu Oseni in 1953 as “an attempt by Adamu Oseni to steal a march over his political and business rival and to gain a monopoly of the cattle trade in the Township.” The business aspect of the conflict, involving the regulation of cattle in the Township, was left to the Local Authority and the Township Advisory Board. See, Simon Ottenberg, Farmers and Townspeople in a Changing Nigeria: Abakaliki during Colonial Times (1905-1960) (Ibadan: Spectrum Books, 2005), 152; and “Hausa Chiefs,” CSE 1/85/9798, National Archives, Enugu. 137

center of the town to one of the suburbs, Ubakala, for the following reasons: that the market marred the aesthetic qualities of the capital; its location, so close to a gorge, was contributing to incidents of road accidents; and the grazing of cattle within the city was a nuisance and not helpful to the vegetation of 401 the area. The traders did not welcome their relocation to Ubakala, and complained that it was not favorable to their trade; that Ubakala refused to sell land for a settlement to them, requiring them only to rent at an exorbitant price; that there was water scarcity in Ubakala, and that the location of Ubakala in the interior was unsuitable for their business. In response to the eviction, therefore, one batch of traders left Umuahia on September 1994 for Okigwe in Imo State, some kilometers away and on the boundary between Abia and Imo States, where they occupied both sides of the dual carriage road that runs through Enugu to Abia and Rivers States. After nine years at Okigwe, that group of cattle traders moved their market back into Abia State, precisely to the town of Lokpanta. The current Sarikin, Hayatu Adamu, summarized the nature of their stay at Okigwe as follows: We came to Okigwe on 15 September 1994. At first the people received us well but later we started having problems between the farmers and our cattle herders. Okigwe farmers complained that our cattle were destroying their crops and that we littered the roads and streams. They started to attack our cattle and us. When we complained to the government, they did nothing. So we started negotiat402 ing for this land in Lokpanta and later succeeded. Adamu omitted to add that in response to their complaints over attacks at Okigwe the government offered them an alternative site at Arondizuogu, which they did not move to because they surmised that “the place was in the interior and likely to expose them to a great deal of armed robbery attacks;” 403 considerations that made them “decide to look for another location.” Access to enough land that will accommodate various facilities, including a Muslim cemetery, have electricity and pipe-borne water, with some proximity to a banking institution, and of course security, were the fundamental reasons for

401 Chief Chris Osuagwu, b. 1959, Abia State Commissioner for Public Utilities, interview, Umuahia, April 2006.

402 Hayatu Adamu, b. c. 1944, cattle merchant and Sarikin Hausa of Lokpanta, interview, Lokpanta, February 2006.

403 Umaru Jalingo, b. c. 1954, cattle merchant, interview, Lokpanta, February 2006. 138

404

the decision to find another settlement. Another cattle merchant explained: “Anywhere we are is our home. Somebody cannot die here and we take him to the north. That is why wherever we settle we make sure that we have all these things around us. So when they refused to provide all of them, we decided to 405 move to this place.” There was the additional complaint that the land at Arondizuogu was uneven for easy movement of their cattle. Underneath all these complaints lay the fact that the cattle traders still hankered for Umuahia where they had all they needed—relatively constant electricity, adequate security and a cemetery, 406 which they continued to use even after their departure from Umuahia. There was some talk on who should best decide where a cattle market should be situated. One of the young cattle traders and secretary of the Hausa community remarked: We left Okigwe because of the misunderstanding between the leaders of Hausa community and Imo State government. They gave us a place that was not enough for us. In our own tradition in establishing a cattle market, it is the cattle dealers who will choose a place and not the government. When they later gave us a place which we agreed to go to, we asked them to provide all the necessary amenities like light, water, police post, bank, and 175 stores for cattle dealers. They refused. They built only twenty stores. They told us to move there and we refused. Some people supported going there while some refused. Those who refused were in the majority, so there was problem. The government gave us 5 January 2005 as the last day to pack to the place they gave us but before then we were offered this place by the Abia State government. So on 6 January 2005, everybody came to this 407 place. It was to their advantage, therefore, that the first civilian governor of Abia State, Orji Uzo Kalu, approved their request for Lokpanta. This site was offered after consultations with the leaders of the town who accepted to lease the land on both sides of the dual carriage road, which runs through Enugu to Rivers State, for both the cattle market and the Hausa settlement. Despite the commitment of the town leaders to this contract, there were dissent voices that op404 405 406 407

Ibid. Alhaji Maikano Mohammed, b. c. 1950, interview, Lokpanta, February 2006. Umaru Jalingo, interview cited. Alhaji Buba Abdullahi, b. 1971, cattle merchant, interview, Lokpanta, February 2006. 139

posed the settlement on grounds of destruction of farmland. These wrote the government stating their claims and exacted a pledge from the Abia State Director of Lands, Mines and Urban Development that they will be adequately compensated for their losses. Movement to Lokpanta started on 5 January 2005 and continued for the next one year. Between 1994 when the cattle market was moved out of Umuahia until 2005 when it settled at Lokpanta, cattle traders split and spread into different towns in Igboland, where they formed new markets and new settlements. In Abia State, some modest activities continued at Umuahia, while a faction moved into Ubakala, and another through Okigwe to Lokpanta. In Imo State, a small community had continued to exist at Okigwe independent of the group that set up post at Arondizuogu. In effect, a cattle market will expand, then splits and move into new towns not previously hosting such a market.

Fig. 16: Leaders of the Lokpanta cattle market. Seated left to right: Sarikin Hausa—Hayatu Adamu, Alhaji Buba A. Kedemure, and Alhaji Umaru Jalingo. The community at Lokpanta put up temporary shelters that could be dismantled anytime. The settlement boasts nearly all the features of a normal Hausa Muslim village structured around Islam. It has a spiritual leader in the person of a chief imam—who runs the Qur’anic school for the children of traders and their travel companions; commercial and social leaders in the person of the sarikin yaro (head of the cattle market, sarikin mpawa (chief butcher), and a secretary of the community, among other officials. The com140

munity observes all the rules of their religion and Hausa social customs, including wife seclusion. Within a year of the arrival at Lokpanta a few cattle traders including the Sarikin Hausa (the leader of the community), had married local women, thus building up a core of local converts to Islam through marriage.

Fig. 17: A section of the cattle market Sales take place in the cattle market on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. Buyers come from the adjoining villages and also farther afield to the market at Lokpanta, thus fulfilling the reason central to its establishment: “For the area to develop into a very popular market that will attract people from dif408 ferent parts of the country,” reported the local government chairman. Cattle markets have their uses besides the provision of meat and related products for consumption. They diversified employment prospects for local youths, some of whom work as secretaries or sales assistants to cattle moguls. To cater for the market population, Igbo women have found self-employment as mobile food vendors during market hours. Increased mobile phone operators and quick transport services (with motorbikes), have all flourished in small and remote towns in attempts to service the cattle market. The employment index in Nigeria have long privileged the major towns forcing persons in remote areas to 408 Dr. Chidiebere Ude, b. 1967, Umunneochi Local Government Chairman, interview, Lokpanta, April 2006. Civil unrest such as the shari’a riot reprisals of February and March 2006 saw nearly all northern traders and their aides wherever found temporarily deserting Lokpanta and Igboland for their home states. They returned after the crisis. 141

move to urban areas in search of employment, but as market activity grows, no matter what type, prospects for employment increase and remote and small towns in particular benefit from the developments. Thus, the cattle market suc409 ceeded in transforming Lokpanta from a quiet to a very busy town. The post-war expansion of the cattle trade in Igboland has been impressive. The business itself has shown tendencies to attract other smaller ventures alongside it, operated also by migrants. Once a cattle market is thriving, it becomes a matter of time before sections of the market are dotted with traders retailing foods commonly grown in Northern Nigeria. Tomato, onions, dried fish, and beans are among the common items sold along with meat products at Lokpanta. Besides this group of small-scale traders, other migrants from Northern Nigeria provide other services. In this category are found individuals who came to tap subsidiary business prospects created by the cattle trade such as roving cobblers who mend and polish shoes for traders and their clienteles as they carry on with daily transactions. These subsidiary traders do not restrict their operations to the market, but also hawk wares in the villages around, sparing their clients some of the hassles involved in sourcing for the goods themselves. In between trading, they hire themselves out for all manner of unskilled jobs. The Igbo have noted the overall relevance of these ubiquitous unskilled migrant laborers. Some, however, are apprehensive like this interviewee from Isiokpo: There are many Muslims in the town who engage in different types of businesses—cattle trade, yam trade, shoe repair, jewelries, security etc. We accommodate them because of their business. They are only interested in their trade and religion. For other social activities, count them out. Instead, they will be looking for how to convert you. Some sell their goods on credit to make you come closer to them. Some will 410 forgo the credit if you become a Muslim… Others focus more on their economic utility like this assessment from Nnewi shows: We now rarely travel to other towns to buy wristwatches. Today, any type of watch you want, you get from them. They hawk all kinds of things and bring these to your home. They have also made meat cheaper and they do those jobs many of us will not like to do like dig409 Mrs. Veronica Nwoga, b. c. 1946, interview, Lopkanta, February 2006. 410 Mr. William Uche Ohia, b. 1934, retired principal, interview, Isiokpo, February 2006. 142

ging sewage pits and similar tasks. We prefer white-collar jobs and abhor some of the hard jobs they do. Whatever odd job you want to 411 do, they will come and do it at a cheap rate. Notwithstanding the advantages of the cattle market, some indigenes on Lokpanta have occasionally grumbled against the interference by migrants in the normal trade of the Igbo. They mentioned in particular migrants’ encroachment into the palm oil trade, which has made cooking oil expensive. Besides that, communities, on whose land the traders settled, counted among their losses the shrinking of their farmlands, which were donated for the cattle trade; the problem of overgrazing of land by cattle left to wander indiscriminately in the com412 munity; and the destruction of cultivated farms by cattle. Even in villages without a cattle market complaints over grazing and destruction of farmland have come up severally, indicting herders for driving their herds through vil413 lages and towns for pasture. Squabbles over ruined farmlands have on many occasions engaged local and state governments as individuals or whole villages demanded compensation from cattle owners and intervention from the state in preventing future incidents. One other recurring complaint by the Igbo over Hausa settlements in recent years revolved around issues of hygiene. This was one of the considerations for the removal of the cattle market and settlement from Umuahia city centre in 1994. At Okigwe, the squabble between migrant traders and their Igbo hosts, in the former’s nine years residence, was over the poor hygienic conditions of the cattle market and settlement. The community grumbled that migrants littered both roads and streams. A visitor to the Hausa settlement at Lokpanta in 2005 remarked: The place was very untidy with a lot of flies, and the traders did not care to drive them away, including in sections where they were preparing suya, cooked food, and brewed tea for sale. The women selling fresh cow milk had so many flies around them. It irritated me so much

411 Chief Nnamdi Obi, interview, Nnewi, January 2004. 412 Mr. Innocent Okeke, b. c. 1954, interview, Lokpanta, February 2006. 413 There were several clashes in Ezeagu and Uzo-Uwani local government areas between indigenes and cattle herders, over destruction of farms by cattle when driven through these places. Mr. Obele Maduegbunam, b. 1969, interview, Umulokpa, January 2006; and Mr. John Ezeama, b. 1953, interview, Adani, January 2006. 143

that when I was thirsty I refused to buy bottled water from there until 414 I returned to Enugu. The cattle business and the cattle market, as mentioned, have functioned in the last three decades in particular as a site for conversion. A number of Igbo cattle traders at Umuahia, Lokpanta, Uga, and elsewhere are Muslims who linked 415 their conversion to Islam to their involvement in the cattle trade. One cattle trader from Sokoto State who has spent twenty-five years in Igboland narrated as follows: We buy cattle from the far north and sell in Igboland … We teach the Igbo how to trade on cattle. Some days we travel to the far north with our Igbo trainees. There they join us during our worship. We also use gifts to attract them, like giving them money to establish their own business. Another way of converting non-Muslims is by marrying 416 them.

The Igbo and their guests: Ambivalent relations Tales told about Igboland are as numerous and varied as the individuals who had visited the area. Muslim strangers to Igboland at first appear disconcerted by Igbo pragmatism. Many have concluded that the environment is a challenge to Muslims. The Ghanaian cleric deployed from Saudi Arabia, in 1982, for missionary work among the Igbo felt confronted, according to him, by “forces of anti-Islam”: I never dreamt of coming to Nigeria... When I finished my studies I was asked to choose three countries. I chose Nigeria because it is close to Ghana. I did not know that I was coming to be a missionary who will stay here for ten years. Basically I thought I was coming to teach in one of the Nigerian schools. But God chose Igboland for me… Maybe God knows that I can do this little thing. So instead of being in 417 the classroom analyzing words, I am faced with forces of anti Islam. 414 Ogechukwu Ike, personal discussion, February 2005. 415 Chief Godwin Ngwuli, interview, Umuahia, February 2006; Chief B. C. Nwosu, b. c. 1937, interview, Umuahia, February 2006, and Sheikh Ali Ukiwo, b. 1960, interview, Umuahia, February 2006. 416 Alhaji Ibrahim Musa, b. 1948, interview, Uga, February 2006. 417 Sheikh Idris Al-Hassan, b. 1959, Director of the Islamic Centre in Enugu, interview, Enugu, May 2003. 144

I misunderstood his meaning and assumed that some persons were hostile to him and asked about those experiences. He then clarified the situation thus: You may not understand. I have a picture of Saudi society. Imagine a young man of 18 years taken to that place for eight years. You cannot interview me as you are doing now. First, your dress will not be what it is now. Even if you are talking to me, you will not be facing me… Can you now see what I mean? … The first problem I had in my neighborhood was: As a new person I went round to greet people. I met a certain man, with my companion, and he served us beer! … It was like being thrown into an ocean. I did not take the beer and the 418 man viewed me as an abnormal human being. Clearly Al-Hassan judged Igboland with his knowledge of Saudi society and found the Igbo and their society jointly antagonistic to his spirituality and his mission. His challenges can be summarized as follows: dealing with women who have no inhibitions over their physical assets and who are accustomed to public and unrestricted interactions with men, and conflicts over societal norms on hospitality that run contrary to the teachings of Islam. These differing practices had little to do with the chasm created by the different theologies of Igbo religion and Christianity, on one hand, and, Islam, on the other. Al-Hassan is not alone in feeling threatened by the Igbo and their way of life. A young Hausa male Corp member to Enugu State, in 1991, who was visiting Igboland for the first time, was alighting from a motor vehicle when he missed his footing and stumbled. An Igbo girl steadied him. Not used to such close contact with female strangers, he fainted from shock, leaving those who witnessed the incident bewildered. Not long after the incident, he requested for redeployment out of Igboland. Narrating the encounter to fellow Muslims he confessed feeling like he was going to die because he had never been held that way by a wo419 man. This incidence prompted the Islamic Centre at Enugu to introduce an orientation programme for Muslim Youth Corpers posted to Enugu State, involving lectures about the Igbo and their culture. The orientation programme is held yearly for Corpers at any suitable time between their arrival in the state and their dispatch to their places of primary assignment. The economic advantages of Igboland notwithstanding, migrants have 418 Ibid. 419 The Public Relations Officer of the Islamic Centre at Enugu, who handled the matter, told me this story: Alhaji Mutui Osuji, b. 1936, (converted to Islam in 1982), interview, Enugu, May 2003. 145

much to cope with. Alhaji Haruna Sule, a Hausa from Kano and the Sarikin Hausa of Enugu, was born in 1934 in Enugu and also grew up there. He found the Igbo to be very different in custom, habits, and worldview from the Hausa, his own ethnic group. However, such cultural differences as might have existed between migrants from Northern Nigeria and their Igbo hosts have not prevented the former from pursuing their dream of economic advancement in the Igbo homeland. An aspect of Igbo culture Haruna and other old migrants from Northern Nigeria severally commented on is the pattern of dressing. Haruna made this remark about it: “Islam did not specify what precisely people should 420 wear or not wear.” The ambivalence, which characterized the relations between the nonMuslim Igbo and Muslim migrants until after the civil war period, is gradually giving way to a less stringent form of relationship with wide diversities from place to place. Using Lokpanta as a case study, when the Hausa community was barely two years old, migrant traders expressed their pleasure at the cordial welcome received from Lokpanta chiefs the leaders of the settlement narrated how their hosts presented them with a memorandum of understanding during a scheduled celebration to mark their arrival. Inter-religious conversions in which Muslim Hausa and non-Muslim Igbo converted to each other’s religion were all cited as proof of peaceful coexistence and mutual bonding 421 between migrants and hosts. The celebration marking their arrival symbolized more than a welcome for these guests. It served also as a commemoration of the business contract signed by both parties. Soon after, some Igbo regretted that their women were so easily lured away 422 “by cattle money” into marrying Muslims. Later, a group of farmers, men and women, petitioned against the ceding of their farmlands for the cattle market. The probability that the Muslim migrants posed some economic challenge to Igbo farmers and traders engaged in same line of commodity marketing should not be ignored and may partly inform some of these complaints, thereby causing some reticence from the parties. An example can be shown with an incident in Aba in 2005 in which Igbo traders accused migrant Muslim traders of obstructing their trade by marketing their wares on the roadside, which, for them, was preventing consumers from moving into the market where Igbo stores were located. Hausa traders were asked to leave their positions at the roadside, 420 Alhaji Haruna Sule, Sarikin Hausa of Enugu, interview, Enugu, May 2003. 421 Sarikin Hayatu Adamu and Alhaji Umaru Jalingo, interviews cited. My Muslim interviewees reported the conversion, by February 2005, of five Hausa to Christianity.

422 Mr. Innocent Okeke, interview cited. 146

423

but as one of them remarked, “We had nowhere to go so we remained there.” A month later an angry mob descended on yam traders of Northern Nigeria origin for refusing to pay market toll. Some yam traders were ill-treated and their goods confiscated. Some escaped the attack being forewarned of the incident. Piecing together the testimonies from migrant and Igbo traders, along with the report of an imam and a police officer, it appeared that market toll was increased and the migrant traders refused to pay it. Law enforcement agents blamed Igbo market workers for attempting to force the payment and for causing the scuffle that interrupted market activities in the town. Three lives were 424 lost in the confrontation. The accusation of obstructing trade seems unconnected with the latter incident over market dues but both incidents show how easily tensions can occur in Igbo—Muslim migrant relations. Another reason for aloofness arises from the prejudice against migrants from Northern Nigeria for “contributing zero percent to social development 425 where they reside.” This was described as a natural habit of migrants from Northern Nigeria who “cannot invest tangible things … or do a nice business 426 that can bring development...” The complaint hidden in these statements is actually that instead of reinvesting part of the profits they make in Igboland into their host communities through building good structures, starting industries or similar enterprises with development potentials, majority of the Muslim migrants from Northern Nigeria live in make shift structures and channel their earnings back to their homelands. Varying expressions of this comment were 427 heard in different parts of Igboland during this study. Some who spoke thus contrasted the migrants’ attitude to material possession with the Igbo inclination for acquisition of property, which they exhibit wherever they find themselves. Two Muslim migrants, a trader and a lorry driver, commented on this 423 Alhaji Mohammed Umar, b. 1972, itinerant trader, interview, Aba, January 2006.

424 425 426 427

Others who were interviewed on this incident include: Aisha Audu, b. 1983, food vendor; Miss Halima Umaru, b. 1989; Alhaji Idris Bashiri, b. 1976, imam of Aba central mosque; Musa Abdullah, b. 1972, yam trader; Mr. U. Nwosu, b. 1977, Police Inspector, Mr. Nnamdi Okonkwo, b. 1977, yam trader; and Alhaji Nuhu, b. 1966. Mr. U. Nwosu, interview cited. William Uche Ohia, interview cited. Ibid. Ms. R. Nduagu, b. 1968, interview, Kaduna, January 2006; Mr. Ikechukwu Ileka, interview, Nnewi, January 2004, and Dr. John O. Alutu, interview, Nnewi, January 2004. For Dr. Alutu: “They have not contributed to the development of Nnewi. They are not progressive people. No schools or hospitals. Their mosque is very untidy. If they are progressive people they should have put up a better structure for their worship. They have done nothing for themselves and Nnewi people.” 147

difference between persons from Northern Nigeria and the Igbo and cited it as what attracted them to Igboland. Further to the accusation over lack of reinvestment in the host community will be the disapproval with the market-initiating processes of cattle traders whereby they anticipate the governments of their host communities to meet their every requirement—building the stalls they will use and providing security for their settlement and the cattle market—when the same government have not met these needs for its local population. What cannot be said for certain is if these demands and expectations contributed to the frequency of denials Hausa traders experienced in their efforts to spread their commercial activities in Igboland. In places where they succeeded in engineering the emergence of a thriving cattle market—in exchange for the land they received and the permission to trade—they provided basically the main commodity sold, the cattle and related accessories, but these can as well be provided by Igbo traders themselves if they determine to do so. When calculated this way, it appears, on one hand, as though Igboland gain little lasting benefits from the commercial activities of Muslim migrants in their midst. However, on the other hand, the trade relationship appears quite a normal one. The Hausa, as professional cattle producers and traders, have made meat commonly available to the Igbo who were never great cattle producers despite having their own local brand of cattle, the muturu. Moreover, the local governments derive some revenue from cattle tax and market dues and individuals have gained financial benefits as landlords to Hausa tenants, besides also tapping into the cattle trade. In spite of the complaint about hygiene, the occasional rivalry over trade interests, the discourse on the absence of investments, and the absence of any 428 overriding political and religious unity between the Igbo and the Hausa, the wall of ethnic exclusivity that defined Igbo—Hausa relations since the turn of the twentieth century is melting away. In some Igbo communities a less turbulent form of relationship has existed in the last two decades. The remarks on Igbo-Hausa relations in Owerri, by a Hausa trader born in Owerri in 1950 and raised there, indicate a thawing of the relationship. Although he identified little progress with conversion of Igbo to Islam and cited instances of exploitation by 428 Igbo Muslims’ political preferences follow two discernible trajectories: one half favor the Muslim dominated All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) because Islam encourage support for a member, and the other half support just about any party they want to irrespective of its religious views or tendencies. The parties most favored by this second group of Igbo Muslims are the People Democratic Party (PDP), the ruling party since 1999, and All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), the “Igbo” party. 148

the Igbo, he observed the existence of a cordial relationship that has enable 429 more of them to marry Igbo women. Hausa traders mentioned the relative absence of violence in Igboland as one 430 of the attractions of the area. Also inspiring Hausa migrations into Igboland is the claim that money circulates much more in Eastern Nigeria. A 68-year old interviewee from Nassarawa State, interviewed at Akowka in Imo State, put it this way: “Igboland is the only area one can stay without disturbance. The people of this town and the Igbo generally accommodate strangers. In Igboland there is no trouble but in Hausaland they are fighting every time… So we have 431 no problem living in Igboland.” Another migrant, a transporter from Taraba State resident at Isiokpo remarked: “At our side there are always crises because of the nature of our religion and this has become a pattern in Hausaland. In Ig432 boland, people struggle for themselves without waiting for anybody.” These remarks may not be taken to be fully representative of the opinion of all northern migrants or of the Hausa as a whole but as very personal views. The affable relationship reported between Hausa Muslim migrants and the Igbo at Nnewi, Mbaise, and Nsukka were respectively attributed to the numerical insignificance of the latter vis-à-vis their hosts. Some Igbo, including Muslims among them, imagined Hausa Muslims as exhibiting the highest level of tolerance when they are in the minority. “In my village,” reported an Igbo Muslim from Mbaise, “they are gentle and humble. They socialize well with 433 non-Muslims because they are few in number.” In Awgu a different scenario was presented. In 1998, a Hausa Muslim attacked a boy who mocked him while he said his prayers, leaving him unconscious. The violence displeased the community and many demanded for the departure of the Hausa from the village, 434 but this was not upheld by the leadership of the town. 429 Alhaji Danladi, interview, Owerri, February 2006. 430 Igboland is by no means the only less traumatized part of Nigeria. Eastern Nigeria as a

431 432 433 434

whole qualifies to be considered as the most peaceful part of Nigeria. This applies especially to religious disturbances. This peace was breached from 2000 when groups in the Southeast began to respond in kind to Muslim attacks on Christians in Northern Nigeria. In 2006 a wave of reprisal attacks swept through Igboland in the wake of yet another Muslim-Christian clash in Northern Nigeria. Such incidents temporarily provoke a return to the unfriendly existence of the early years of contact between the Igbo and migrants from Northern Nigeria. This, however, will be taken up in chapter 7. Usman Ali, b. c. 1938, interview, Akokwa, February 2006. Mohammed Tafida, b. c. 1951, interview Isiokpo, February 2006. Mallam Mohammed Ibeh, b. 1959, interview, Mbaise, January 2006. Mr. John Azi, interview, Awgu, September 2003. 149

Yoruba Muslims in Igboland do not appear to have encountered the same degree of isolation that the Hausa did in the history of their stay in Igboland. The Igbo appear more tolerant of the Yoruba. In the first instance, the Yoruba have consistently been fewer in number in Igboland than the Hausa and other migrants from Northern Nigeria. They have also earned the reputation of being the major Nigerian ethnic group that least allow themselves to live outside 435 their homeland. Secondly, many Yoruba migrants in Igboland are government employees who live side by side their hosts with as little friction as possible. They seem to pose little economic challenge to the Igbo as they did not require considerable portions of land for settlement or for economic purposes like the Hausa. With the end of the colonial policy of separation of natives in 1939, the Yoruba have mixed more with their hosts, living outside enclosed settlements, than the Hausa. Perhaps, the considerable number of Christians and civil servants among their numbers may well make them more acceptable to the Igbo than the Hausa. In a town like Owerri Igbo parents allowed Yoruba 436 Muslim suitors to marry their daughters earlier than they did Hausa suitors. This is confirmed by Doi in his account of Islam in Nsukka where he condemned Yoruba Muslims for giving their daughters in marriage to pagans and 437 Christians, unlike the emerging Igbo converts to Islam. Igbo-Yoruba rapport is not based on any historical affinity for there have been reasons for tensions between the two ethnic groups just as there were between the Igbo and the Hausa. One obvious case and which has lingered in the memory of the older population of Igbo is connected with the Nigeria-Biafra war for which the Igbo criticize the Yoruba as an unreliable partner because of their failure to secede from the Republic of Nigeria in sympathy with the Igbo. Even with what may be considered the less rigid contacts of the Yoruba and their Igbo hosts, getting accepted and integrated in smaller communities in Igboland sometimes took Yoruba migrants a bit longer than in the urban areas. Saka Adekunle, a carpenter who came to Akokwa in 2000, gave himself the Igbo name “Emeka” to circumvent his isolation, which was creating employment problems for him during his first few years in the town. Using an Igbo name was his way of integrating himself with the Igbo. From his testimony, his 438 job-related problems ended after his change of name. 435 436 437 438 150

Margaret Peil, “Interethnic Contacts in Nigerian Cities,”Africa 45 (2) 1975. Alhaji Mutui Osuji, interview, Enugu, May 2003. Doi, Islam in Nigeria, 180. Saka Adekunle, b. 1974, interview, Akokwa, February 2006.

Migrants among themselves Migrants to Igboland have lived peaceably among themselves, observed an old Yoruba Muslim born at Ibagwa. This will not imply that there has been a total absence of the occasional strife between them within the more than one century of their intermingling in Igboland, but that on average they coexisted serenely. In Ibagwa-aka in the old Nsukka Division the cordiality among migrants from Northern and Western Nigeria was attributed to their common status as migrants. Under colonial rule, cooperation was inevitable in the face of the ambiguous policy of colonial administrators to strangers. Islam was instrumental in fostering harmony among Muslims in particular irrespective of their ethnicity, yet each group guarded or projected its ethnic identity by preferring to associate more closely with persons from their ethnic group except 439 where it was inevitable that they interact across that boundary. Another medium for fostering this ethnic unity was the town meetings, a trend that became popular all over Nigeria by the 1940s. While Islam has been instrumental in the mutual acquaintance of migrants of different ethnic affiliations in Igboland, and their cooperation with each other, it did not demolish ethnic peculiarities that informed different spiritual trajectories. Nearly all over Igboland, Hausa Muslims in conjunction with other Muslims of Northern and North Central Nigeria have worshipped separately from Yoruba and other Muslims from Western Nigeria, although in principle each Muslim is free to enter any Muslim place of worship. At Aba, Enugu, Umuahia, and Onitsha, to mention a few, Yoruba mosques are distinct from mosques jointly used by the Hausa and Nupe. It did not appear to matter that their numbers sometimes were very small. It also became obvious that the cordiality among migrants is not burdened by their opinions of each other’s ethnic culture. Hence, such observations as were made by Zachary Obaseki, an Edo Muslim, that “Muslims who are neither Hausa nor Yoruba are scorned in some circles,” and by Yahaya Ahmed, a Hausa Muslim, that “Yoruba Muslims mix up 440 Islam with their tradition …” neither prevented, in the past nor at present, migrants’ cooperation at the private and public levels both for the sake of Islam and for their own good in their host communities. One disadvantage of multi-ethnicity on Nigerian society is the negative almost jealous criticisms of the “other.” The Igbo-Hausa and Hausa-Igbo relationship is riddled with this just as 439 Ottenberg, Farmers and Townspeople, 90-2. 440 Zachary Obaseki, interview, Aba, July 2003. Yahaya Ahmed, interview, Kaduna, August 2003. 151

the Hausa-Yoruba and Yoruba-Hausa relationship, etc. The sequence is as varied as there are ethnic groups in the country. Dotted all over Igboland are temporary structures serving as mosques. In some cases they are merely small spots marked on their boundaries with wood or building blocks and lacking the most basic facilities of a proper mosque. Worshippers bring their mats, pray, and go away with the mats, leaving no trace whatsoever of what the structure stands for. Outside the prayer hours, these structures serve as resting places for domestic animals, goats most especially, and these leave behind their imprints and wastes at the venue. Mosques in Ibagwa, Enugu Ezike, Nsukka town, and Inyi, among others that I saw in 2003 much resembled these structures and are used mostly for the five daily prayers. Mosques used for the Friday congregational worship were better constructed and also maintained, even though they may, in reality, be provisional mosques. Herein lies the contradiction between expectations and the reality. Muslims do not expect that a mosque must be a proper building lavishly ornamented before it can serve its purpose, but most non-Muslims in Igboland appear to think otherwise and have judged the progress of Islam in Igboland by references to Islamic institutions and structures around them.

Da‘wa and the Spread of Islam in Igboland 441

Da‘wa is one of the exotic terms recently gaining currency in Igboland. Da‘wa is the act of “preaching Islam” and any Muslim engaged in da‘wa, either as a cleric or as the occasional volunteer, qualifies to be categorized as the Islamic equivalent of a missionary, I was severally informed. Da‘wa is understood by Igbo Muslims to be an all-embracing activity. A Muslim teacher explained it as incorporating “those activities by Muslims to uplift the tenet of Islam in a non-Muslim society like Igboland. These will include religious acts such as praying, dressing appropriately as a Muslim, fasting, building a mos442 que, and running a school.” The process was summarized as “a mild form of 443 jihad.” The connection to jihad suggests a wider application of the word “struggle,” which jihad represents, and not any indication of aggressive behavior, synonymous with the 9-11 bombings in the United States by Muslims, and 441 “Da‘wa” is synonymous with “to call” or “to invite.” Larry Poston, Islamic Da‘wah in the West: Muslim Missionary Activity and the Dynamics of Conversion to Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 3. 442 Mallam Lawal Wakili, b. 1966, interview, Nsukka, July 2003. 443 Zachary Obaseki, interview cited. 152

similar incidents elsewhere, for which “jihad” has in recent years assumed a new coloration beyond its dominant theological understanding as a struggle for self-purity. Islamic proselytization and jihad have no clear distinction to Muslims in Igboland. Both words are at the root of the mandatory injunction on Muslims to bring lost humanity to the Muslim God. Muslims migrants, traders, undergraduate students, and young Nigerian graduates in their National Youth Service programme (youth corpers) commonly talked about their da‘wa adventures, making it one of the recurring themes in my interviews. Undergraduates and youth corpers, more than traders and other migrants, mostly used the term da‘wa in their discussions of their contributions to the spread of Islam in their host communities. Clearly Igboland was presented as being full of possibilities for Muslim advocates and missionaries especially members of the Muslim Corpers Association of Nigeria (MCAN), a national organization formed in 1979 by young Muslim graduates, with branches in all states of the federation. Majority of the Muslim migrants, including some Igbo Muslims, proclaimed themselves as independent and self-deployed missionaries. These “missionaries” and different groups of Muslim Corpers appear to hold regular monthly missions to villages and to different other places 444 for the purpose of winning converts to Islam. They traverse Igbo villages with gifts for the poor, sick, and old, and with the message of Islam, exhorting their listeners to convert to Islam either on the spot or at a latter date. The zeal and efforts of these official and private agents of Islam parallel the resistance they confronted by the sheer dominance of Christianity in Igboland. Dhikrullah Olalade from Lagos State posted this comment about the activities of Muslim Corpers in 2005: Before my coming here, the general misconception has been that there is no Islam in the East. On getting to Enugu I found out that there is Islam, but its level is low due to the fact that there are Muslims … The conscious ones are not many. Although, praise be to Allah, with the advent of MCAN’s activities which is primarily Da’wah propagation, more Islamic awareness and orientation programmes, are emerging 445 everyday… In a nutshell, Islam is coming up gradually in the East. 444 MCAN members are very active with Islamic propagation wherever they find themselves. The overall MCAN mission and vision states: “Jointly carrying out the collective Islamic duties of Da‘wa and asserting the rights of Muslims in Nigeria.” Source: http://muslimcorpers.org/serviceguide.htm 445 “How I see Islam in the East,” 13. 153

Of all the groups and individuals engaged with Islamic proselytization in Igboland, the youth corpers have been the most commended for their commitment to da‘wa. An elderly Igbo Muslim described their endeavors as “the only con446 certed effort so far aimed at converting the Igbo to Islam.” Alongside the Muslim Corpers is the Association of Muslim Professionals, established in the 1990s, with migrants and indigenes as members. Various branches of the association have been active with da‘wa in Igboland. Its objectives are: to reach out to non-Muslims and educate them about Islam; to convince them to become Muslims; to provide them with Islamic and Western education when they accept Islam, and to provide Masjids and learning centers for 447 their development. Muslim migrants in towns with longer history of resident northerners show greater boldness in reaching out to locals than those in towns that started about three decades ago, from the 1980s, to play host to Muslim migrants. In the former, long familiarity with the community bolster their confidence; while in the latter, migrants and hosts are still negotiating a convenient form of relationship. Far fewer cases of open proselytization of the Igbo appear to have occurred before 1970. A case in point, which took place at Abakaliki, was recorded by Ottenberg: “In 1960, three northern Muslims itinerant proselytizers were going about the town and the rural areas preaching Islam to whoever would 448 listen and they claimed some 25 Igbo converts.” In 2009, I met in Port Harcourt Alhaji Abubakar Asabi, from Sokoto State, a graduate of the University of Manchester, who was a member of a small missionary team, all Hausa, which toured Igboland in 1976 visiting Onitsha, Enugu, Abakaliki, Umuahia, and Port 449 Harcourt, preaching Islam. Doctrinally, it is the responsibility of all Muslims to do da‘wa. Notwithstanding, two divergent views were expressed in Igboland regarding it. The least heard goes thus: “The religion is highly against the idea of preaching about

446 Alhaji Mutui Osuji, interview cited. Data on da‘wa by migrants to Igboland came from interviews with Yusuf, Zachary, Chief Bello, Alhaji Abdulazeez, Jibril, Alhaji Suleiman, Alhaji Garba, Umaru, Inusa, Haruna, Mrs. Ribbi, Mallam Yusuf, Baba Abubakar, Usman, Abdullahi, Alhaji Ibrahim, Mallam Musa Moshood, and Mr. Ugonoh. 447 Alhaji Idris Okonkwo Eze, b. 1953, tailor, interview, Nsukka, May 2003; and Engr. Yahaya Dutse, President, Association of Muslim Professionals of Rivers State, interview, Port Harcourt, May 2009. 448 Ottenberg, Farmers and Townspeople, 226. 449 Alhaji Abubakar Asabi, b. 1954, Chairman, Rivers State Council of Imams and Scholars, interview, Port Harcourt, June 2009. 154

450

Allah on the street. Preaching must be in the mosque.” The popular sura: “let 451 there be no compulsion in religion,” was quoted to support this inclination. The more widespread opinion suggests that the conversion of non-Muslims “must be achieved because it is expected that at all times the number of Mus452 lims should be greater than those of non-Muslims.” In a situation where this fails, observed some, Muslims have to abide by Allah’s injunctions in carrying out a holy war to convert the non-Muslims. We can surmise that the philosophy driving Islamic proselytization in Igboland since the post war period is to convert as many non-Muslims as possible to Islam. Much individual and group efforts have been expended in achieving this, and no form of violence, so far, 453 has been employed in accomplishing this religious goal. Clearly, the phenomenon of “Peoples of the book” as categories that may not be converted to Islam, to which Christians belong, is not recognized in Igboland where Christians naturally constitute the major target of Muslim proselytization. Members of the Igbo religion, on the other hand, constitute yet an important target, being regarded more favorably as having the higher propensity to believe the message of Islam and therefore better prone to conversion than Christians.

Fig. 18: A young female convert, Sarah Dike

454

450 Haruna Danjuma, b. 1972, interview, Owa, January 2006. 451 Sura 2:256. From The Holy Qur’an translated into English by Abdullah Yussuf Ali. 452 Abdullahi Chinedu Igboama, b. 1961, interview, Enugu, January 2006, and Alhaji Badaru Eze, b. c. 1931, interview, Nsukka, February 2006.

453 Some Igbo inferred that the incessant clashes of Muslims and Christians in Northern Nigeria qualify to be perceived as a form of jihad to intimidate non-Muslims into Islam.

454 Source: Engr. Yahaya Dutse, President, Association of Muslim Professionals of Rivers State. 155

How migrants proselytized is the next important consideration. All possible means went into winning converts. Promises of money, material endowments, education and gifts, all constitute methods of da‘wa. Public lectures, media broadcasts (TV and Radio), and circulation of printed materials, are included. One-on-one preaching has been a relevant form of da‘wa just as marriage to non-Muslims is yet another. Incidents of marriages of Christian women by Muslims have increased in the two and half decades since Doi wrote about it, and are driven by the obligation to do da‘wa. Doi writes concerning Nupe, Hausa, and Yoruba migrants to Nsukka Division in 1984: “On marrying the Christian or pagan women, they feel that some day they will convert them to 455 their own faith.” Marriage to Igbo women appears to have an economic appeal, besides the spiritual satisfaction of gaining a convert and qualifying for paradise thereby. Usman Ali, from Nassarawa State, who married an Igbo wife explained that he and others he knew married Igbo women because they “find it easy, by so doing, to be close to them, and to convert them to Islam.” He further added: “The Igbo are hard working. Marrying Igbo women yield us more. We benefit from their hard work and they transfer that spirit of hard work to us.” The least discussed method of conversion used by Muslim migrants in winning converts to Islam was mentioned by Inusa, from Bauchi State, who at the time of interview was a trader at Ogrute in Enugu Ezike. According to Inusa “another way of having a new convert is through magical power and medicine.” This is understood to refer to some kind of spiritual manipulation or a form of bewitchment into Islam but the details of the procedure were not disclosed, even though two former Muslims, an Igbo and a Ghanaian, confirmed the use of such a method for conversion. Further investigation into this process will be necessary. The propagation of Islam in Igboland started before the Nigeria-Biafra war, yet very little, it appears, was accomplished by way of gaining large numbers of converts to Islam before the arrival, in 1982 in Enugu, of the Saudi-trained Islamic scholar and missionary, Sheikh Al-Hassan. Most foreign and other nonIgbo missionaries who engaged in proselytization in Igboland right into the 1980s confronted language difficulty especially in rural areas and among populations dependent on indigenous dialects for communication. Mallam Garba felt that language “created a big problem to Muslim missionaries to the degree that when the Igbo attempted to cooperate with them they thought instead that the

455 Doi, Islam in Nigeria, 180. 156

456

Igbo were insulting them.” Foreign-trained missionaries, especially the Sauditrained who also are affiliated to organizations in that country, are reasonably well funded for their work. They are better educated than local advocates, most of whom lack any formal training for the task and are also hindered by financial constraints. In part, fiscal restrictions made attempts to lease land or alternatively rent property for Islamic religious activities in Igboland difficult for Muslim advocates. Perhaps these difficulties informed the remarks in 2003 by Igbo Muslim leaders that there was no organized or coordinated Islamic missionary programme for Igboland and Eastern Nigeria by major Islamic organiz457 ations in the country. Nevertheless, the innovative work of Sheikh Al-Hassan in Anambra and Enugu States from 1982 has eased the career of other Muslim missionaries and advocates who followed on his heels in the 1980s and 1990s. Al-Hassan adopted the proselytization strategy of Sheikh Ibrahim Nwagui of Enohia in the propagation Islam in Igboland. His emphases have been on education and the provision of social services, such as counseling and healthcare in particular. The Islamic Centre at Enugu, which he manages, functions as a counseling center for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. The additional plan to build an Islamic hospital has not materialized because of lack of sponsorship for 458 the project. However, he uses the medium of private discussions with nonMuslims at every opportunity and engages in public preaching sessions in the major markets in Enugu. The strategy of promoting conversion through provision of educational services is very popular with Muslims in Igboland. The clerical class referred to 459 this approach as one of “catching them young.” Islamic schools are therefore intended as outreach projects to non-Muslims, and for providing Muslim children with what they are unlikely to receive in Christian-dominated public government schools. The Islamic nursery and primary schools, which emerged in the last four decades all emphasize Islamic studies and Arabic languages in 460 their curriculum. The Islamic Center at Enugu is the secretariat of the Muslim community in Enugu State, and the center for Islamic proselytization in Igboland. Conceived before the Nigeria-Biafra war by Muslim migrants, it has, since becoming operational in 1982, inspired Muslim migrants and indigenes, to propagate Islam in 456 457 458 459 460

Mallam Garba Oheme, b. c. 1908, interview, Enugu Ezike, July 2003. Sheikh Adam Idoko, Mallam Ibrahim Eze, and Imam Omeh Musa, interviews cited. Sheikh Idris Al-Hassan, interview cited. Alhaji Mutui Osuji, Sheikh Idris Al-Hassan, Mallam Ibrahim Eze, interviews cited. Jabir Osuji, b. 1977, interview, Enugu, May 2003. 157

Igboland. The Al-Miraj Muslim Society, responsible for the welfare of Muslims, was inaugurated at the Islamic Centre in May 1983. The organization has joined Christian and other social groups in visiting inmates in the state prison. They are credited with building a mosque in the state prison, and providing an imam to hold Friday prayers for Muslim inmates and converts to Islam. The Islamic Center, in the last twenty-five years, hosted several public lectures to create awareness about Islam in and around Enugu State. One of its landmark activities is the Islamic proselytization day of the Muslim Student Society of the University of Nigeria held in 1987. Most of the activities of the Islamic Center at Enugu are replicated by other Muslim Associations in other parts of Igboland. Another vibrant da‘wa-oriented Muslim community is the emerging Islamic centre at Nnewi in Anambra State. Anambra State Muslims yearly observe a da‘wa week when members make a celebratory procession to the mosque, 461 dressed only in white. Shehu Abdulkadir Sunni from Kwara State, a self-proclaimed missionary shared his approach to proselytization in Igboland. In January 2005, he and some colleagues toured villages in the environs of Aba in Abia State where they distributed “gifts to some poor and sick old people, and held a discussion session, akin to a crusade, where the truth in the true worship of Almighty Al462 lah was preached.” This outing was a sequel to a previous one held in De-

Fig. 19: Reaching out, door to door

463

461 Mr. Abdullahi Shehu, Secretary of the Hausa Community in Nnewi, interview, January 2004.

462 Shehu Abdulkadir Sunni, interview, Aba, July 2003. 463 Source: Engr. Yahaya Dutse, President, Association of Muslim Professionals of Rivers State. 158

cember 2004, which took the team to a different group of villages. They were warmly received by the indigenes, he reported; but no conversion was made. The data on Muslim migrants’ commitment to Islamic proselytization in Igboland after the Nigeria-Biafra war stands in sharp contrast to the evidence on early migrants whose commitment to their trade, observed Sheikh Adam Idoko, dowsed their zeal for proselytization. The civil war, having opened up Igboland to Muslims from Northern and Western Nigeria on a much larger scale both for military service, career prospects for government employers, and for trade, qualifies as the turning point that ended the isolation of Igboland from influences from Islam. Post-war Muslim migrants into Igboland have done remarkably well in promoting Islam in Igboland, acting as its mediator both directly, through obvious premeditated proselytization, and indirectly, by acting out their beliefs for all to see. Traders and unskilled migrants engaged in da‘wa as much as the trained and certified advocates—imams, mallams, and licensed missionaries—many of whom belonged to the League of Islamic Scholars and Missionary of Eastern Nigeria, and of other missionary organizations now op464 erating in Igboland. The story below demonstrates a typical indirect form of proselytization very common of Muslim Hausa traders in Igboland: My father died when I was 15 years. I was the oldest of six children. We all stopped school. My mother had no means of livelihood so we started wheeling barrows and selling palm nuts on market days. One day a man came to me and gave me a huge amount of money. I thought he wanted to buy palm nuts. When he did not return to collect the money I went for him. He said that I should use it for business. I called people to witness what he said so that nobody would call me a thief later. This gesture made me join Islam … after all when I was 465 in pain nobody came, not even to give my mother feeding money. Many Igbo now identify the important role of Muslim migrants in stimulating interest in Islam. It has become normal, driving along major highways in Igboland and, spotting one praying by the roadside. As insignificant as these incidents may seem, they have proven to be weighty actions that make a lot of impression on observers. Some Igbo confessed surprise, initially, at such public devotions so commonly displayed by the untrained, unorganized, supposedly unsophisticated itinerant Muslims traders from Northern Nigeria. Indeed, their 464 Sheikh Adam Idoko and Mallam Garba, interviews cited. 465 Hamza Garuba, b. 1982, interview, Ogrute, February 2006. 159

contribution to creating Islamic awareness cannot be overemphasized. Their role in Islamic proselytization in Igboland confirms the broad implication of Levtzion’s submission that “traders served as vehicles for the proselytization of 466 Islam beyond the boundaries of military expansion.” It will be misleading to conclude that all migrants were engaged in da‘wa. Also found are those who became integrated into Igbo way of life that they slackened in their religious commitments; blaming it on the environment, the scarcity of mosques, and the exertions individual Muslims must make to observe even the simplest religious obligation. One such Muslim, Jenini Lawal, a tailor from Osun State, excused himself with the comment: “You know this is 467 Eastern Nigeria.”

The State and Islamic proselytization Nigerian administrations and administrators have, in a number of ways, enabled Islamic proselytization programmes in Igboland. Some official policies have affected religious developments in Nigerian states, not just Igboland alone, thus making observers of Nigeria’s socio-political landscape to regard the decades from 1970 to 1999 as the period of Islamization. Almost soon after the war, the Nigerian military government expelled all foreign Christian missionaries for their involvement in the war, creating a spiritual vacuum for Churches in Eastern Nigeria. A few years after, the same government took over all mis468 sion schools and converted them into government schools. The post-war expansion of the Nigerian military, which was responsible for the establishment of military outposts and barracks all over Igboland, was first identified by Doi 469 to have contributed in creating awareness of Islam in Igboland. One major event that ultimately changed the national profile of Nigeria was her attainment of full membership in the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) in 1986. Interest in the membership of OIC was first indicated by the Murtala-Obasanjo military regime in 1975 when, at the 6th conference of Islamic foreign ministers in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria was granted observer status in the organization. In January 1986 Ibrahim Babaginda concretized steps 466 N. Levtzion, “Toward a Comparative Study of Islamization,” in N. Levtzion (ed.), Conversion to Islam (New York: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1979), 15. 467 Jenini Lawal, b. 1968, interview, Enugu, September 2003. 468 Egodi Uchendu, Women and Conflict in the Nigerian Civil War (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2007), 179. 469 Doi, Islam in Nigeria, 174. 160

towards full membership and Nigeria “was admitted as the 46th Member of the 470 OIC” during its 16th conference of Islamic Foreign Ministers in Fez, Morocco. As shown elsewhere, Ibrahim Babangida was motivated in this action by the desire “to curry favour with Muslim elites who held key roles in state bureaucracies and military command,” and to attract patronage from OIC member 471 states. The volatile reaction to the OIC membership communicated the grow472 ing apprehension about the official role of Islam in the country. As much as Babangida is accused in Christian circles for religious favoritism he displayed less religious favoritism than his predecessor, Major General Muhammadu Buhari. Miles compares these two Muslim military dictators: Under Buhari (January 1984 to August 1985), the government took over several schools run by Christian denominations and delayed permits for church construction; at the same time the building of mosques intensified. In contrast, Babangida—whose usurping of power from Buhari was in part a “corrective” measure designed to mollify non-Muslim apprehensions, and perhaps forestall an anti-Muslim coup—had actually been quite ecumenical, at least in his public pro473 nouncements. The federal government appears to have further facilitated religious conversion by default through two policies, namely the introduction of unity schools, and condoning, via inaction, the indigenization policy. Unity schools (Federal Government Colleges) were introduced in the 1970s. From the beginning, they were staffed by teachers drawn from all parts of the country. Care was taken to ensure that staff representation corresponded with major religious groups. This is necessary for the fielding of teachers for the two religious studies’ subjects: Christian and Islamic religious studies. The admixture of students from all parts 470 Noor Ahmad Baba, Organisation of Islamic Conference: Theory and Practice of PanIslamic Cooperation (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1994), 172-3. See, Paul Freston, Evangelicals and Politics in Asia, Africa and Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). A Nigerian delegation attended the first meeting held to deliberate on the need for pan-Islamic cooperation in 1938. 471 Adebayo Oyebade, “Reluctant Democracy: The State, the Opposition, and the Crisis of political transition, 1985-1993,” in Adebayo Oyebade (ed.), The Transformation of Nigeria (Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 2002), 151. 472 William Miles, “Religious Pluralism in Northern Nigeria,” in N. Letzion and Randall Pouwels (eds.), The History of Islam in Africa (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000), 217. 473 Ibid. 161

of the country in unity schools promoted conversions. Indeed, in Igboland the comparatively fewer number of Muslim students in unity schools means that these students are often likely to be swayed towards Christianity, than Igbo Christian students are to Islam. The reverse is the case in Muslim dominated states. A number of adolescent Igbo converts to Islam became Muslims in unity 474 schools in Western and Northern Nigeria. The following report by Sheikh Idoko illustrates the usefulness of unity schools in fostering the religious development of the dominant group: My children were in the University Primary School. I felt that it was not helpful to them because we do not have many Muslims there and they do not learn Islamic knowledge. I transferred them to Federal Government College, Abuja, where they can mix with Muslims and 475 do Islamic studies … The indigenization policy has its foundation in the distinction made between indigenes and non-indigenes in a given community. Chapter 2 addressed the British colonial policy of separation of natives on the grounds of religion and custom thereby creating the idea of “host” communities and migrant or settler groups, even within same ethnic society. This approach continued after independence in 1960 with Nigerians expanding on its claims, and institutionalizing an unconstitutional quasi policy of separation in daily life and most fundamentally along ethnic lines. Regional governments before 1960 pursued policies suggesting that host communities were entitled to preserving a certain distance between themselves and their migrants, and to have sole access to certain privileges special to their environment. A strong public expression of it occurred in 1965 during a debate on the floor of the Northern House of Chiefs when Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, the late Premier of Northern Region remarked: “We do not want to go to Lake Chad and meet strangers catching our fish in the water, and taking them to leave us with nothing. We do not want to go to Sokoto and find a carpenter who is a stranger nailing our houses. I do not want to go to the Sabon Gari, Kano, and find strangers making the body of a lorry, or to go to the 476 market and see butchers who are not Northerners.” This isolation of other 474 One remarkable example is Cynthia Audu, b. 1983, an undergraduate, interview, Nsukka, February 2006.

475 Sheikh Idoko, interview cited. 476 Isaac Albert, “The Socio-Cultural Politics of Ethnic and Religious Conflicts,” in Ernest Uwazie, Isaac Albert, and Godfrey Uzoigwe (eds.), Inter-Ethnic and Religious Conflict Resolution in Nigeria (New York: Lexington Book, 1999), 73. 162

ethnic groups, for Northern Nigeria, derive from both religious and economic considerations aimed at protecting the then economically deficient region, and preserving their religious unity. It became also exemplified in other regions, and has partly contributed to inter-ethnic conflicts in Nigeria. The idea that non-indigenes have no right to demand the full benefits of citizenship has become deeply ingrained in Nigerian political thinking, and almost taken for granted. The discrimination against non-indigenes, in the decades after the Nigeria-Biafra war, was severally cited among the major reasons for Igbo migrants’ conversion to Islam in Northern Nigeria. The remark by a Kaduna indigene in a fact-finding mission of the Human Rights Watch in Kaduna further illustrates this: “For an Igboman it is very difficult here. You cannot even go to a government office and be received… This is because in the east, all of the win477 dows are locked to us, let alone the doors.” After the civil war, Igboland has been governed as much by Muslim governors as by non-Muslim governors. Consequently, besides federal policies that impact on religious interests, state governors are known to have promoted own religions in the states under their control. Depending on their religious inclinations, state governors have pursued and supported policies that upheld either the Christian and traditional image of Igbo states or lent credence to Islam. Highly placed Igbo public servants convert to Islam more rapidly under Muslim military administrators in their bid to attracting political appointments. In some cases, these conversions endure for as long as the Muslim governor was in of478 fice. Similarly, highly placed Muslim civil servants also use their positions to encourage their Igbo subordinates to become Muslims. A police inspector from Adamawa State to Akokwa, Imo State, and an Area Commander, on transfer from Niger State to Nnewi, Anambra State, made their new posts their proselytization sites and their targets their colleagues. The police inspector narrated that he regularly gave out gifts during Muslim festivals “to show them 479 the need to be Muslims.” The Area Commander took the time to organize the migrant Muslim community. In line with this, he attempted, in 2003, to build a

477 Human Rights Watch, ““They Do Not Own This Place” Government Discrimination Against “Non-Indigenes” in Nigeria,” Human Rights Watch Vol. 18, No 3(A) April 2006, p. 6. 478 Mr. Nnamdi Uzoigwe, interview, Enugu, September 2003. 479 Abdullahi Umaru, b. c. 1961, Inspector of Police, interview, Akokwa, February 2006. 163

Fig. 20: The turbanning of Mr. Orji Uzor Kalu, former governor of Abia State mosque near a military base, but was halted by an official order that queried 480 his action and faulted it for his failure to consult with the owners of the land. Since 1999, democratically elected governors in Igbo states have fostered harmony between migrants and host communities in their territories. This is a marked difference from older administrations under military dispensations. Imo state government, in recognition of the growing religious mixture of its citizens, began to invite in addition Muslim leaders to official functions such as the swearing in of newly elected political officers, and they are sometimes requested to give words of admonition in the same manner that Christian clergy 481 will. Orji Uzo Kalu, the governor of Abia State from 1999 to 2007, became popular with Muslims when he built a big mosque in Aba in place of the old mosque that was destroyed in 2000. The Zamfara State government commemorated his efforts by turbanning him as the Bachirin Zamfara in 2006, amidst 482 vituperations by many Igbo in the homeland and in Diaspora. An imam from Ondo State spoke on the role of governments in aiding the proselytization of Islam especially in Igboland: 480 Garuba Haruna, b. c. 1964, interview, Awka, February 2006. 481 Alhaji Dauda Onyeagocha, chief imam of Owerri central mosque, interview, February 2006.

482 See, for example, http://www.biafraland.com 164

I must admit and recognize the governmental support that we have been enjoying. Islam is spreading today in the east as a result of maximum support and cooperation from state governments. They have created a favorable and conducive environment and atmosphere for its spread. Go to Abia State; see what the governor is doing there. Under such protective environment, Islam has continued to grow. In Delta State, the government is trying. We prayed for Governor James Ibori last year [2004] during the Ramadan and he won his protracted Supreme Court case. He showed appreciation to the Muslim community in substance. Anambra State is not left out. The establishment of various mosques was made possible during the military regimes. The military administrators in Anambra and Delta States were Muslims and they sponsored and supported many projects. All these have suppor483 ted in no small measure the spread and growth of Islam in Igboland.

Transnational support A lot of the credit for proselytization of Islam in Igboland went to foreign Muslim countries and international organizations. Educational assistance for Igbo converts to Islam came from Islamic organizations based in Saudi Arabia and also from Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iran, Senegal, Sudan and Pakistan, countries that in various ways have championed the progress of Islam in Igboland. Generous donations from King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and Jordan paid for the development of the Islamic centre at Enohia and the rehabilitation of the Islamic centre at Orlu, along with the mosque that was damaged during the Nigeria-Biafra war. The mosque at Shell camp in Owerri, Imo State, was built during the military regime with financial assistance from Saudi Arabia. It is one of a number of mosques built by same government in Igboland. Muslim missionaries and teachers sponsored by foreign Muslim nations have worked in Igbo484 land since 1970. Organizations recognized for their support of Islamic proselytization in Igboland include Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) with headquarters at Kaduna. JNI stands out as an active agent for Islamic proselytization in Igboland. Its main activities revolve around the expansion of education among Muslims and spreading Islamic doctrines. A branch of the organization was established in Ig483 Alhaji Ahmed Adekola, chief imam, interview, Asaba, September 2005. 484 They include Sheikh Idris Al-Hassan, Sheikh Adam Idoko, Sheikh Saliu Abugu, Sheikh Haruna Aja, Sheikh Ibini Ekpe, among others. 165

boland in the late 1970s and was led by an Igbo Muslim, Alhaji Suleiman Onyeama, who also was the first Igbo member of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs. Jama’atu Nasril Islam earned the credit for organizing many activities through which some Igbo converted to Islam and in turn be485 came members of the organization.

Igbo Muslims and Da‘wa Igbo Muslim leaders one denied the existence of any organized and coordinated Islamic missionary endeavor, by major Islamic organizations in Nigeria, for Igboland and Eastern Nigeria as a whole. Sheikh Idoko had remarked: “If Muslim personalities and Islamic organizations outside Igboland do not support the extensive proselytization of Islam among the Igbo with funds and moral encour486 agement; they should not sit down and expect miracles to happen.” In his assessment, so much more than what was received up till 2003 was needed for a successful proselytization of Igboland. As observed by the imam, the Igbo field requires so much aid that will transcend internal and external support received during special feasts, and huge supply of Islamic literature for proselytization and for young converts. In 2002, The Triumph daily paper carried the following: The Igbo Muslim community in Bauchi State has called on Muslims in the country to take urgent steps to propagate Islam in the eastern states, saying that “the Igbo people are hungry for Islam.” In his Eidel-Kabir message the leader of the community, Alhaji Abdullahi Okere, said that propagation of Islam among the Igbo would enhance harmony among Muslims irrespective of ethnic origin. Okere said that Muslims must intensify efforts toward the propagation of the religion, especially in Igboland, adding that adherents of the religion must be “courageous and make sacrifices by using their wealth to donate towards helping the poor.” While praying for the progress of Islam and peace in the country, the Igbo Muslim community enjoined Muslims to intensify the building of more mosques and Islamic schools so as to 487 facilitate propagation. Muslim clerics in Igboland are emphasizing more and more the crucial respons485 Doi, Islam in Nigeria, 175-6. 486 Sheikh Idoko, interview cited. 487 The Triumph Newspaper, 28 February 2002. 166

ibility of Igbo Muslims towards Islamic proselytization in Igboland. In 2005, Sheikh Idoko appealed to the Igbo Muslim Diaspora to join in. He declared: “Finally, I am calling the Igbo Muslims in Diaspora to come back home and wage war against shirk, ‘kufr’ (polytheism). They should not hide anymore that they 488 are not Igbo …” From the five converts Sheikh Idriss Al-Hassan met at Enugu in 1982, the indigenous Muslims in that city have grown to number well over two hundred. 489 Their number increased as converts in turn converted family members, friends, and acquaintances to Islam. In all mosques “missionary groups” are found with responsibilities ranging from hosting open-air meetings, lectures, and public discussions on Islam, distribution of religious pamphlets, and bring490 ing friends and acquaintances to mosques to hear divine messages. It is obvious that the aggressive ubiquitous proselityzation strategies of Christian churches have influenced Igbo Muslims. Kilani described it as the impact of American type “Television Churches” on Muslim youths who had “to organize pro491 grammes to retain their members in Islam.” The same pattern by which many Igbo were won to Islam—through gifts— has featured as the foremost method through which Igbo converts seek to make converts of non-Muslim Igbo. Reports on Alhaji Suleiman Onyeama indicated that from 1975 to 1980, he championed the spread of Islam in his village, Eke. The offer of scholarships for all educational levels and promise of jobs to gradu492 ates were foremost incentives used to encourage conversions. Cynthia, a female Muslim undergraduate, who will not necessarily go preaching to get people converted, still achieve same purpose by addressing some of the needs of her non-Muslim acquaintances and friends. She has introduced some young female graduates to wealthy and influential Muslims for employment into very attractive jobs with the condition that they convert to Islam. Cynthia, in addition, promises a silver tooth to any friend who becomes a Muslim. She was un493 equivocal in her declaration: “we use wealth to get people into our religion.” 488 “Interview,” Al-Huda Magazine, May 2005, p. 29. 489 The chief imam of the mosque at the Islamic center, Enugu, which is the main mosque

490 491 492 493

used by Igbo Muslims, estimated their numbers to be “up to 300”. This includes Yoruba and other non-Igbo Muslims who use the same mosque. Alhaji Idris Okonkwo Eze, interview cited. Abdulrazaq Kilani, “Proliferation of Muslim Organisations in Nigeria: Merits and Demerits,” in Journal of Objective Studies, 8 (1996), 18. Michael Mmadu, b. 1964, interview, Enugu, April 2006. Cynthia Audu, interview cited. 167

One explanation for the emphasis Muslims place on conversion through material inducements is captured in the comments by a Yoruba imam: I saw myself in a region where anything goes: In a place where the quest for material things superseded the search for Allah. A place filled with men who are arrogant and boastful; men who are themselves niggardly and enjoy others being niggardly, too; men who conceal that which Allah of his bounty has bestowed upon them, men who spend their wealth for the sake of ostentation. Allah has prepared 494 a shameful punishment for these unbelievers. In conclusion, the contributions of Muslim migrants to proselytization have considerably complimented all other efforts towards that goal. In recent years, migrants and indigenes have worked together on joint da‘wa projects and in 495 social services where conversions can potentially take place.

494 Alhaji Adekola, interview cited. 495 Alhaji Mutui Osuji, interview cited. 168

CHAPTER 5 INTERROGATING CONVERSIONS TO ISLAM IN IGBOLAND

“I have told you that if you join the Hausa to become Muslim nothing will happen to you. You will be making steady progress all the 496 time.”

Motives for conversions to Islam in Igboland When large-scale conversions occur, it socially and politically restructures a given landscape. Not too long ago, Malony reiterated the psychologists’ stand497 point that there is no such thing as unmotivated behavior. We may boldly assert that the motives for religious conversions taking place in Igboland will be fundamental to what converts anticipate out of conversion. Understanding these factors makes for better appreciation of social changes likely to occur in Igboland with its growing multi-religious character, some of which are already evident. There are two discernible categories of Igbo Muslims. One group is composed of persons born to Muslim parents and, the other, persons who changed their religious identity to Islam sometime in their lives. This section concentrates on the latter. Converts whose stories feature in this chapter, except otherwise stated, were resident in Igboland at the time their stories were collected. For a good number of Igbo Muslims, their religious change hinged on the 498 conviction that “Islam is the truth.” This knowledge came in various ways to different persons. It was also the product of different interpretations of personal encounters with Muslims and of personal experiences, all convincing them of their predestined link with Islam. Different yardsticks were used to arrive at the 496 Imam Ibrahim Eze, c. 1938, (“born into Islam”), chief imam of Nsukka town central mosque, interview in Nsukka, March 2003. All persons “born into Islam” were born by Muslim parents or to fathers who were Muslims at the time of their birth. In all cases they identified themselves with that phrase. 497 H. N. Malony, “The psychology of Religious Conversion,” paper delivered at the “Conference on Religious Freedom and the New Millennium,” Tokyo, May 23-25 1998. 498 Garba Oheme, b. c. 1908, (converted to Islam in 1937), interview, Enugu Ezike, June 2003. 169

conclusion that Islam is the truth. Garba Oheme, already mentioned as the first and oldest convert from Igboland, realized that Islam is the truth from events surrounding his health challenges in the late 1930s. At a time when modern medical service in Nigeria was in its infancy, Oheme was cured of a longstanding leg injury, caused by an accident, by a mallam of Hausa origin. The wound had for years resisted other remedies. This miracle convinced Oheme 499 that Islam must be the true religion and he promptly became a Muslim. Since Oheme’s experience, similar demonstrations of super-natural healing by Muslim mallams have motivated quite a number of conversions in Igboland. Few cases linked to healing from prolonged sicknesses and incidents of barrenness were encountered during fieldwork and were cited as reasons for conver500 sions by men as well as women. Other proponents of the view that personal conviction was at the root of their conversions support it with reference to the Igbo attitude to Islam. These converts, from Nsukka and Afikpo in particular, argue that popular rejection of Islam in Igboland is proof that those converting 501 did so from conviction. But then, conviction is a subjective terminology hav502 ing different meanings for different people. Abdullahi Onyeama, whose financial problem was solved by his Muslim friends, from a sense of relief (including the knowledge that he could benefit in a similar manner in future) became 503 convinced to become a Muslim just as Abdulaziz Udeh, after a thorough study of the faith and its teachings, was also convinced that it is indeed the acceptable way to God. What is important is that individuals have the inner backing for the action that best served their interests. Closely related to the reasons advanced for conversion on grounds of conviction are claims that Muslims are kind—what the elderly class of converts 504 styled Muslim sympathy. Such understanding again is based on personal interactions with Muslims. Detailed instances of better treatment from Muslims 499 Ibid. 500 Imam Hassan Omeh Musa, b. c. 1947, interview, Obukpa, May 2003; Sheikh Adam Idoko, b. 1958, chief imam, University of Nigeria mosque, interview June 2003.

501 Sheikh Haroun Aja, b. 1958, religious instructor, interview, Abakaliki, September 2003: and Amin Elem, b. 1969, interview in Abakaliki, February 2006.

502 Abdullahi Chinedu Igboama, c. 1959, interview, Awka, January 2006. According to Mr. Igboama, he lost his business capital in a robbery incident and his Muslim acquaintances assisted in re-establishing his business. Their generosity impressed him and led to his conversion. 503 Alhaji Abdulaziz Ude, (converted to Islam in 1978), interview, Lagos, February 2006. 504 Ahmed Omeje, interview, Ibagwa, May 2003: Ibrahim Agbedo, b. 1953, interview, Enugu Ezike, January 2004, and Imam Ibrahim Eze, interview cited. 170

were cited and these took the form of relatively rich traders giving financial assistance of various kinds and providing support in solving a wide range of other needs. This and similar other instances are in fact the extension to the nonMuslim of privileges of membership in the Muslim brotherhood in the anticipa505 tion of drawing the non-Muslim into Islam. Incorporated in these acts of kindness were services associated with divination and the making of charms, which some Muslim clerics perform with relatively great success. The provision of charms and talismans was widespread in West Africa where, for centuries, it was an important factor in captivating local interest for Islam. It was severally 506 identified with Muslim proselytization. Currently at Obukpa resides Hassan Omeh, an Igbo imam, known for his ability in charm production and related 507 services, and who enjoys the patronage of Muslims and non-Muslims. Dreams played an important role as the veritable facilitator of some conversions to Islam in Igboland. Sheikh Idoko recalled that the conversion of his late father to Islam sometime in the early 1950s occurred after a dream: My father was not born a Muslim. According to what he told us his first experience of Islam was through northern Muslim traders. He said that he saw in a dream how he was praying like a Muslim… When he woke up, he imitated what he saw himself doing in the dream for about two years until he met some Muslim traders who led him through what we call Kalimah … It is the official reversion to Is508 lam where you are told to mention some specific words… Alhaji Musa Ani who converted to Islam in 1975 narrated the series of dreams that led to his conversion. Excerpts from his lengthy and detailed account are reproduced here: I attended St. John’s Seminary in Kaduna before the civil war. I was born a Roman Catholic… I was so inquisitive and wanted to know the 505 Abdullahi Umaru, b. 1961, inspector of police, interview, Akokwa, February 2006. 506 See for instance: Frank Salamone, “Becoming Hausa: Ethnic identity change and its implications for the study of Ethnic Pluralism and Stratification,” Africa 45 (4) 1975; N. Levtzion, ed., Conversion to Islam (New York: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1979); and Mervyn Hiskett, The Course of Islam in Africa (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994). 507 Imam Hassan Omeh Musa, interview cited. 508 Sheikh Idoko, interview cited. Igbo Muslim clerics and missionaries trained in Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East prefix their names with “sheikh”, meaning learned men. Their colleagues, who trained locally, in Northern or Western Nigeria, prefix theirs with “imam”. 171

in and out of everything I found in the Bible… We were told in the church that the first miracle of Jesus was changing water into wine but in the Seminary I read other documents… I found out that Jesus spoke in the cradle. I started asking questions. The Irish Reverend Father replied that it was a mystery; that the issues I was probing are mysteries and that I have not reached the age of knowing such things… I did not go further… After the civil war when we came back, I was a member of St. Patrick’s Church and was very committed to all church activities. All of a sudden, I started noticing things distracting me from morning mass. I had no idea what was wrong with me… At a point I wanted to forego everything about the world… I wanted to go to a monastery … In fact, I just made up my mind to retire from the world and pray for the rest of my life. Two days to my departure for the monastery, after making every arrangement necessary, I saw a dream that where I am going is not for me; that the work I am to do is not there… When I say dream, I was not in a deep sleep. I did not go into slumber… I sat down with my eyes closed to have a little rest. That was how I had the dream. I decided not to go to the monastery. I continued with the church as usual until I had another dream that what I am looking for is not where I am going… After having those dreams I started contemplating: But if not there, where? Six months later I saw another dream. I was lying down with my eyes closed and I saw written on the wall “Islam.” I was told, “go and search for Islam. That is where your future is.” Then suddenly I opened my eyes and asked myself “what it Islam?”… I had no friend who was a Muslim and I had nothing to do with Islam…I grew up in [northern Nigeria], speak the language, we lived with Muslims in the same house but we never had anything in common with regard to religion… I ignored it and continued with my church activities… So after three months, I saw another one showing me the type of people I will meet. They were wearing agbada and were praying… So I traced where to get such people… I met an Hausa tailor and asked for the imam… and told [the imam] that I wanted to become a 509 Muslim. He said no problem, that he can initiate me… 509 Alhaji Musa Ani, b. 1955, Secretary of the Islamic Centre in Enugu, interview, Enugu, May 2003. Agbada or Babariga, Yoruba and Hausa terms respectively, refer to long robes worn by Nigerian Muslims. 172

Most Igbo identify with dreams and regard them as supernatural revelations. Careful analysis of the accounts above exposes some salient qualities in dreams. In the first the sheikh’s father had met Hausa Muslims. What we do not know is if he admired them or not. However, he dreamt of himself praying like them; a move capable of strengthening his admiration for them and whatever internal reflections he was having about the religion. He met them again and allowed them to convert him. In the second, being in the seminary did not stop this interviewee from living self-indulgently as he disclosed but he yearned for a life of piety and had a spiritual hunger that his circumstances then could not assuage. He assumed that spiritual satisfaction would be found in a monastery. His dreams made him decide the direction to take to achieve his goal. In both accounts dreams confirmed some predisposing circumstances that favored conversion. Both individuals concluded that their dreams had divine origins and acted accordingly. The importance accorded dreams qualifies them to act as facilitators, making possible the acceptance of new ideas from within the self or from outside—including new religious beliefs—and constituting in their own right a channel of conversion. Another reason advanced for conversion is the appeal of Muslims’ non-materialistic lifestyle. Igbo Muslims eulogize Islam for encouraging it. They emphasize Muslims as simple people, supporting their claims with references to Hausa Muslims in particular. The Igbo came into contact with Yoruba Muslims, mostly from Ilorin, in Southwest Nigeria, relatively soon after their contact with Hausa and Nupe Muslims of Northern Nigeria. In fact in a few communities, contact was first with Yoruba Muslims before either Hausa or Nupe Muslims; but, from all indications, Yoruba Muslims made the least impact on the Igbo, perhaps because their numbers remained very minimal unlike those of the Hausa and the Nupe. Hausa Muslims have continued as models of what an average Muslim is and looks like and are known to the Igbo as very simple with an equally simple way of life. When non-Muslim Igbo speak of Hausa as simple people, they connote a wide range of traits ranging from an uncomplicated lifestyle devoid of luxuries to straightforwardness, naivety, and a total lack of sophistication. The name calling of the civil war years bequeathed the linking of this alleged simplicity 510 with the complacency of cows; and it is not uncommon to hear the Hausa referred to as “ndi bakwomi,” pointing to their naivety, and, more derogatively, 510 The association of Hausa with cows derives from early contacts between the Igbo and Hausa. Most early Hausa in Igboland came as cattle traders. 173

511

to lack of intelligence and sophistication. This uncomplimentary view of the Hausa is not general among the Igbo for indeed a good many Igbo admire their simplicity and lifestyle. More importantly, for Igbo Muslim converts, these unpleasant images are not implied in their own remarks. In fact the noble aspects of simplicity come into focus in their assessments and the attraction was forceful enough to motivate conversions to Islam despite the fact that conversion makes them, in the eyes of other Igbo, “Hausa” by religion even if not in other ways. One individual who became a convert on this consideration is Mallam Ahmed Omeje from Ibagwa. His father was friends with northern Muslims. That relationship provided a window through which the young Ahmed ob512 served Muslims and eventually adopted Islam. Non-Muslim Igbo regard conversion to Islam as the adoption of an important feature of Hausa ethnic community. This reasoning is behind the terminology “ndi Hausa,” meaning the Hausa, commonly applied to Igbo converts to Islam. Connecting conversion to Islam with becoming Hausa is not confined to the Igbo alone. Salamone encountered similar reasoning in Yauri in present Kebbi State nearly four decades ago. For the Yauri, conversion to Islam ulti513 mately led “to the assumption of Hausa ethnic identity.” Adamu writing from the perspective of the Hausa shows that conversion to Islam can be regarded as a marker of classification within the group. He writes: It is impossible to give a simple definition of an Hausa person because different criteria were, and still are, used by different people at different times and places to define who was or should be defined as Hausa. To decide who was and who was not, some people used purely historical claims to Hausa identity, others used cultural traits, and social values as their yardstick, while still others used religion plus lan514 guage. The association made between Islam and Hausa ethnicity took on a special cur511 “Bakwomi” is Hausa for “no problem” but the Igbo use it pejoratively to suggest, “anything goes.”

512 Mallam Ahmed Omeje, interview cited. 513 Frank Salamone, “Becoming Hausa…,” 410-423. In a recent study on the Efik and Ibibio, same connection was made with local converts to Islam. Both Efik and Ibibio Muslims were described as persons who have joined the Hausa: Sheikh Trevor Saleh, b. 1968, (converted to Islam in 1984), interview, Ikot Ekpene, May 2009; and Ahmed Etim Bassey, b. 1985, assistant chief imam of MOPOL mosque, interview, Calabar, June 2009. 514 Adamu, The Hausa Factor in West African History (Zaria: Ahmadu Bello University Press, 1978), 3-4. 174

rency, observes Adamu, following the Islamic reform movement of the early nineteenth century that encapsulated nearly all of Hausaland and beyond. He personally agrees that the adoption of Islam positions a person as an Hausa. He defines the Hausa as “those who historically issued from Hausaland or their descendants through the male line, or those who became closely associated 515 with Hausa culture by adopting its language, its customs and religion.” The attractive force of Hausa Muslim simplicity was first made known to me by Sayeed Suleiman with respect to the conversion of his father to Islam of whom he said: “He became a Muslim after observing that Muslims are very simple. Earthly things are not important to them. They do not think about acquiring airplanes or vehicles. They take life very simply. My father wanted to 516 be as simple as them. That was why he converted to Islam.” Imam Ibrahim Eze, one of the oldest serving Igbo imams, told me: “The beauty of Islam lies in the efforts of the members to contain their appetites for the things of this life. Muslims do not struggle to acquire all that could be acquired in the world or to live and never die just for the sake of worldly enjoyment. Any person with 517 such ambition is not a true Muslim.” There is the repeated contrast drawn between Hausa Muslims and nonMuslim Igbo by Igbo Muslims. They place on one side the Igbo attachment to a life of comfort, and, on the other, the non-materialism of Hausa Muslims. Muslim simplicity is contrasted with Igbo customary ostentation. Historically, Igbo ceremonies required a good deal of expenditure, sometimes beyond the financial capacity of the celebrant. Marriage and burial ceremonies are common examples. Muslim marriages are comparably much cheaper than Igbo marriages. Dauda Ojobe reasoned thus: “For a burial ceremony, you go with a cow to show that a great man is dead; but in Islam it is not like that. Islam is 518 cheap…” In other words embedded within the claim of Muslim simplicity and the contrast with Igbo materialism actually lies the attraction of the cheapness of the life of Muslims. Some interviewees, indeed, stated that it takes an Igbo less to be Muslim than to be Christian. Igbo idealism of Muslim simplicity has a contrast in Last’s study of conversion among non-Muslim Hausa Maguzuwa who, using a different yardstick in assessing the economic advantages of conversion, see Islam differently: 515 516 517 518

Ibid. Sayeed Suleiman, b. 1975, (“born into Islam”), interview, Ogrute, June 2003. Imam Ibrahim Eze, interview cited. Dauda Ojobe, interview cited. 175

But daily life as a Muslim is expensive, and not all feel they can afford it. Most notably the husband forgoes the labour of his wife outside the house: the Muslim wife will neither farm for him nor collect wood nor draw water; instead of providing them herself, she is entitled to have wood, water, and ingredients for the gravy bought for her…while she 519 may perhaps work on fields of her own account. Maguzuwa, in addition, found the process of taking on an Islamic name after conversion equally expensive. Muslim marriage and burial ceremonies may be comparatively cheap to the Igbo but the whole baggage that Islam brings with it may not be that cheap for the vast majority outside the wealthy class. Perhaps, to minimize some of the cost of Muslim daily life, Igbo clerics and ordinary Muslims assiduously disagree with the practice of female seclusion, insist520 ing that it is an Hausa culture and, therefore, un-Islamic. Meanwhile, reading Last makes one aware that non-Muslim Hausa do not practice seclusion, regarding it themselves as an expensive Islamic practice. Admirers of Muslim simplicity are more from the towns of Enugu Ezike, Ibagwa, and Alor Agu, in the old Nsukka Division, than from other Igbo communities that have produced converts to Islam. These are towns where the “old generation” of Igbo converts and their Muslim-born descendants are found. They appear intolerant of the ostentatious and luxurious life of wealthy Muslims associating it with a defective commitment to Islam and a recent development. Asmau Shittu, a female interviewee from Enugu Ezike, says of affluent Muslims: “That a person acts piously does not mean that he is pious. You cannot say that because I covered my whole body very well that I am pious. 521 Some take on the Muslim identity yet they have the devil’s heart.” Igbo Muslims like Asmau, Suleiman, and Imam Eze who admire Hausa Muslims for their simplicity and uncomplicated way of life have had limited contacts with Muslims. None, including the imam, by the time of interview, had been outside Nigeria. They therefore have not had contact with a very wide assortment of Nigerian and foreign Muslims. Furthermore, except for the imam who did his advanced Islamic studies in Northern Nigeria, none had any educational experience beyond the secondary school level. Again, with the exception of the imam, their evaluation of Muslim lifestyle is based on limited local knowledge 519 Murray Last, “Some economic aspects of conversion in Hausaland (Nigeria),” in N. Levtzion (ed.), Conversion to Islam (New York: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1979), 244.

520 Mrs. Asmau Shittu, b. 1969, (“born into Islam”), interview, Nsukka, May 2003; and Imam Hassan Omeh Musa, interview cited.

521 Mrs. Asmau Shittu, interview cited. 176

drawn from interaction largely with a class of unprofessional Muslims of Northern and North Central Nigeria origin who lived or are living as itinerant mallams, traders, and laborers in their communities. The views expressed that Muslims are simple rather conjure up the preference of Islam for modesty and should not be taken too literally to assume that wealth and comfort are antithetical to Muslims’ daily existence for if such indeed is the case, it presupposes that a considerable proportion of Muslims worldwide do not qualify as true Muslims, which of course may not be the case. Since such a claim is debatable even to Muslims themselves, one should comprehend the comments of Suleiman and the imam in their local contexts. Of the more enlightened Igbo Muslims, simplicity is not the yardstick used for the Hausa or for the totality of the Muslim worldview. For many established and prospective Igbo businessmen, and some women, found within and outside Igboland, the primary attraction to Islam has been the stereotype of Hausa – more precisely Northern Nigerian – Muslim businessmen and politicians popularly called Alhaji. These are individuals who constitute a class of undisguised wealthy and influential tycoons. One more reason for most conversions in Igboland derives from the affirmation that Islam is not the privilege of any one ethnic community. This is a direct reaction to Igbo association of Islam with the Hausa ethnic community. Olayi Saibou from Ebonyi State asserted: “We have read the Qur’an and the 522 Hadith and saw that Islam is for everybody.” Many professing Igbo Muslims chanted this remark in modified ways to emphasize their right to choose Islam as their religion. It was also heard from Muslim clerics of Igbo and non-Igbo origin wishing to assure the Igbo of the universality of Islam and to encourage conversions to Islam. The important issue behind this remark is the question of choice amidst alternatives. Unlike the situation nearly a century ago, the Igbo of today have the prerogative to choose one religion out of three major ones and other minor ones found in their locality. This is the right some are freely exercising through conversion to Islam. Reasons given for conversions from Christianity in particular to Islam bordered on discontent with doctrinal issues and from frictions arising from interpersonal interactions among Christians. Dissatisfaction with lack of accountability in the management of church funds and compromised commitment to church procedures made Abubakar, formerly Agu Igboeze from Okpuje in Enugu State, and Saidou, formerly Ogbonna Okah from Amasiri in Ebonyi 522 Olayi Saibou, b. 1967, (became a Muslim at the age of 7), interview, Izza, January 2006. 177

State, both previously Christians, to break with Christianity in favor of the 523 Muslim ummah. Following further inquiry, it was disclosed that few years after conversion, members of his mosque found Abubakar guilty of mismanagement of funds. A young assistant imam whose conversion to Islam was linked with his ambition to win students election in his university a few years back provides another kind of example. His interest in undergraduate students’ politics was greeted with remarks by Muslim schoolmates who, according to his narrative, told him that it will be impossible for a Christian to win a student union election in a university in Northern Nigeria. To realize his ambition, he became a Muslim and consequently won the office he contested for. Several other persons became Muslims to address one disadvantage or another in their lives. Unable to get their due unhindered, they sought it through religious affiliation. This state of affairs is well known to the many imams and sheikhs in Igboland whose priority it is to gain as many followers as possible from Igboland (and not necessarily to investigate how genuine were the reasons for the conversions). Imam Ibrahim Eze of Nsukka central mosque where Abubakar now worships responded thus to inquiries on the authenticity of his conversion: Even if there are underlying motives, I cannot interpret them. But even if he had those motives for entering Islam, you should know that to enter a religion one weighs it for its advantages and benefits to the person, and compares these with what one is already enjoying where he or she is, to decide which to choose. It is my opinion that whoever enters Islam in the fear of God (Chineke) understands that Islam is the 524 way that will make him have the fear of God. Several remarks were made by Igbo Muslim leaders in particular regarding individuals who approached them professing interest in Islam but who were with time, sometimes after their induction into Islam, found to be motivated by nonspiritual factors. In this group were persons who came believing that “their 525 daily bread would no longer be a problem” after their conversion. In order words, economic challenges were at the base of such conversions. Persons with anticipation that conversion would guarantee daily sustenance had heard of the 523 Imam Ibrahim Eze told the story of Abubakar from Okpuje. Alhaji S. Okah, b. 1956, Islamic teacher, interview in Amasiri, September 2003.

524 Imam Ibrahim Eze, interview cited. Chineke is Igbo terminology for God. 525 Alhaji Mutui Osuji, b. 1936, (converted to Islam in 1982), public relations officer of the Islamic Center in Enugu, interview, Enugu, May 2003. 178

munificence of Muslims and concluded that belonging to their faith would more readily position them to benefit from that generosity. Set within this bounteousness is the trust Muslims have for persons with whom they interact closely. Peil’s study of interethnic contacts in Nigeria shows Hausa as less eth526 nocentric than may be assumed. The ordinary Hausa may trust almost completely a non-Hausa business partner who closely associates with Muslims or is accommodating and friendly to Muslims. The principal of an Islamic school in Enugu, Al Huda Primary School, confirms this with her own experience: “For the reason that I work here, Hausa shoe repairers come to my house to give me their weekly earnings to keep for them… They know I am a Christian but they believe that I will not cheat them like many Igbo who take advantage of their 527 trust.” Only one interviewee acknowledged attempting to convert to Islam to exploit such trust targeting specifically the rich Muslims and not the struggling Hausa itinerant laborers commonly found in the major streets of Igboland. Indication of conversion for economic reasons is also mooted in this extract from an interview with a female Igbo resident of Kaduna city: Q: Are there Muslims of Igbo origin in Kaduna? A: Yes; but how many are they? They are very few … They are doing Islam secretly. They use it to get money. Q: What do you mean by using it to get money? A: Haba! This people can give you money; do anything you want and 528 set you up in business. My research disclosed the case of an adult male who ceased being a Muslim after practicing Islam for well over a decade. Jubril Ocha converted to Islam in Kano city in 1987, lived as a Muslim, performed the hajj, married an Hausa Muslim woman of Kano origin with whom he had several children, and afterwards left his wife and children in Kano because he was no longer interested in Islam. To him, it had served the purpose for which he embraced it, which was to make him wealthy. When asked about his wife and children, he responded that they were in good hands; that the children could not be Igbo because they 529 were raised as Hausa and Muslim according to his Hausa mentor’s wish. 526 527 528 529

Margaret Peil, “Interethnic Contacts in Nigerian Cities.” Africa 45 (2) 1975, pp. 107-121. Mrs. Chinyere Okolie, b. 1963, interview, Enugu, May 2003. Mrs. Nkiru Nduka, b. 1971, interview, Kaduna, 2006. Mr. Jubril Ocha, b. 1958, (converted to Islam in 1987), interview, Kaduna, September 2003. 179

In Enugu city in particular, cases of aborted conversions involved mostly students in tertiary institutions and unemployed youths who needed some assistance to get on with life. A couple of clerics in Igboland observed that this class of converts tended to lose their faith after receiving the desired financial 530 and other assistance. Reading Anthony, it would appear that adult Igbo indigenes have long been involved in this conversion game for Anthony gave it as a reason why some Igbo converts to Islam in Kano city completely assumed Hausa Muslim identity after conversion to distinguish themselves from the less 531 ingenuous Igbo converts who nominally join Islam for economic reasons. Some persons who set out to convert but eventually did not might have had genuine interests in Islam but social and other circumstances, including pressure from family members as in the case of Nathan Okeke, prevented them from actualizing their conversion dreams. However, this trend partly publicized conversion to Islam among the Igbo as money-driven. For the economic as well as politically minded converts, the pathway of wealth and influence goes beyond the boundaries of Nigeria. Alhaji Ahmed Onyema, an Igbo Muslim businessman, remarked: “Being a Muslim has given some of us the opportunity to visit Arab countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt. In fact there is nothing 532 to regret in being a Muslim.” A handful of male interviewees sang similar refrains. The preponderance of the Igbo who joined Islam in order to have international connections and access to the wealth of the Islamic world, Saudi Arabia most especially, using the auspices of the annual hajj has caused many nonIgbo Nigerian Muslims to denounce Igbo Muslims as fake Muslims. The ordinary non-Muslim Igbo also dismiss cases of conversion as guise for economic and political aggrandizement. Says one: Only very few Igbo have embraced Islam and that could be attributed to economic reasons. Some have gone to be appointed Ministers or awarded contracts and other appointments in federal ministries and in states controlled by Muslims. They feel that the shortest way of get533 ting closer to the northern power brokers is to become Muslim. Accusations that the conversion of Igbo to Islam since after the civil war was in anticipation of economic and other benefits do not worry all Igbo Muslims. 530 Sheikh Al-Hassan and Alhaji Mutui Osuji, interviews cited. 531 Douglas Anthony, “Islam does not belong to them: Ethnic and religious identities among male converts in Hausaland,” Africa 70 (2000), 426-32 and 436. 532 Alhaji Ahmed Onyema, b. 1941, interview, Ezzamgbo, September 2003. 533 Mr. Eze Ezekiel, b. 1966, civil servant, interview, Abakaliki, October 2003. 180

Haruna Aja summed up the opinion of most on this issue. He agrees completely that many Igbo are joining for the benefits to be derived but holds that everybody expects something from being a believer in any religion and, in the case of Islam, since Allah provided the condition that people should ask in order to receive, persons who joined the group for what they anticipated to gain have not erred. In his opinion, the Igbo are not alone in expecting economic and other benefits from their commitment to Islam. New comers to Islam from Hausa534 land and Yorubaland also come with expectations. He must have anticipated Salamone’s 1975 study that recounted the story of a Yoruba headmaster at Yelwa Waje Primary School, a former Catholic, “who found it advantageous to his career and acceptance in Yauri to convert to Islam and to marry four women.” The significance of his change was clear even to his students who were “well aware that the path to political success in the North-western State is via Islam.” 535 Earlier records on Islam also show that among the Hausa reformers who fought the jihad wars of the early nineteenth century were those who were 536 motivated by material rewards that would accrue to them. While on one hand some Igbo Muslims like Haruna agree that some conversions had economic and political undertones; on the other hand, are found individuals who react angrily to that assumption or rather to its wide application to all Igbo Muslims. The wealthy businessman, Abdulaziz Ude, angrily retorted that he was not a civil servant but a successful businessman with chains of businesses all over the world and therefore could not have converted for economic reas537 ons. Economic minded and politically motivated conversions to Islam did not end in the dustbin of future reversion. This group of converts like their colleagues who were largely driven by spiritual quest still made sense of their 538 faiths and only few cases were known to have recanted. A broader view of Igbo political emancipation was also expressed, albeit differently, by persons outside the clerical class. The following extract, from a widely circulated electronic mail, capture the opinion of some Igbo Muslims in diaspora on the relevance of the conversion of the Igbo to Islam: 534 Sheikh Haroun Aja, interview cited. 535 Frank Salamone, “Becoming Hausa…,” 419. 536 J. O. Hunwick, “The Nineteenth-Century Jihads,” in J. C. Anene and G. Brown (eds.), Africa in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Ibadan: Ibadan University Press, 1981), 297-98. 537 Alhaji Abdulaziz Ude, interview cited. 538 Two examples are: Mr. I. Ala, b. 1941, (converted to Islam in 1975 as Mallam Usman but recanted in 1987 and joined the Igbo religion), interview in Mbaise, February 2006; and, Mr. Jubril Ocha, interview cited. 181

In an objective analysis it appears that the Northerners have drawn great strengths of unity and power from their identification with Islam. The Zionists have likewise found the key to independence by accessing the survivalist instincts of their “eye for an eye religion.” Being weighed in the balances has Christianity truly benefitted the Igbo??? Maybe it’s time to read the prophetic words of Maazi Blyden [Edward Wilmot Blyden] who referred to himself as a "True son of 539 the Ebo race" (Christianity, Islam and the Negro race, 1887). Blyden compared the impacts of Christianity and Islam on the “Negro.” He postulated that Christianity will always contain the African in an eternal state of dependency on the white man, while Islam, on other hand, is by nature more suited to the black man because it encourages a sense of pride and independence. On the basis of his identification with the Ebo [Igbo] race, the writer of this electronic mail considers his comments as having great prophetic significance for the Igbo in particular. He recommends that the Igbo should follow in the footsteps of Blyden, who converted to Islam after his analytical study of the burden of Christianity and Islam on Africans, or, alternatively, refocus their aspirations on the tenets of the Igbo religion. All conversions in Igboland to Islam were not from the Christian religion. The village head of Akanu, Ohafia, Abia State, narrated that when Hausa and Fulani nomads wandered into Akanu with their cattle some decades ago, the indigenes were intrigued by their prostrations “because they resembled our pattern of worship in honor of the earth goddess.” Their observation eased interaction between Akanu and the nomads eventually producing some converts in 540 Akanu after the civil war. Igbo religion also bequeathed members to Islam from those who observed parallels between Islamic tenets and Igbo traditional worldview in the areas of re-incarnation, polygyny, and charm making. Dauda Ojobe’s conversion thirty-eight years ago was because Islam unlike Christianity allows polygyny. Born as the only son to a father who in turn was the only son, Ojobe admired the culture of multiple and concurrent partners and found 541 the support for it in Islam leading eventually to his conversion. The resemblance between certain Islamic stipulations with Igbo cultural practice made conversions to Islam from the latter not to be regarded as a very serious deviation by the converts in particular. One important pre-empting issue for members of 539 Email from S. Al-Sulaimani, 11 July 2008. 540 Chief Ani Nwoke, c. 1930, village head of Akanu Ohafia, interview, Akanu, May 2005. 541 Dauda Ojobe, b. 1928, (converted to Islam in 1971), interview, Enugu Ezike, May 2003. 182

the Igbo religion is the Islamic prohibition on alcohol consumption; but converts from the Igbo religion declare their adherence to it nonetheless.

Women and conversion Marriage by far has ranked as the primary reason for the conversion of women to Islam in Igboland. There have been more cases of such conversions since after the Nigeria-Biafra war. Men also became Muslims for purposes of marriage but unlike women their rate of post-marriage withdrawal from Islam was higher. The following account, corroborated in a separate interview by the elder brother of the interviewee, provides an example: Neither my father nor my mother was born Muslim. My father’s first wife was the daughter of a townsman who was a Muslim. She was the mother of my elder brother... Before my father married his mother he first had to become a Muslim… That was the condition my stepmother’s parents gave for his marrying their daughter… Actually after the death of his first wife, he left Islam and went back to the tradition542 al religion. He married my mother as a non-Muslim. Muslim religious leaders and scholars hold to the tenet that a Muslim man should not marry a woman who is a polytheist, an atheist or an apostate. He may marry a free woman from the People of the Book—people whose religious tradition was originally based on a divinely revealed scripture like Jews and Christians. All schools of Islamic law however forbid a Muslim woman marrying a non-Muslim man. Mraja provides some explanation for this: It has been pointed out that marriage is a most intimate communion, and the mystery of sex finds its highest fulfilment when intimate spiritual harmony is combined with the physical link. If religion is at all a real influence in life to both parties or to either party, a difference in this vital matter must affect the lives of both more profoundly than 543 differences of birth, race, language, or position in life. On average Nigerian Muslims regard marriage to non-Muslims as an avenue for bringing converts into Islam and at the same time winning divine approval. More than half the men interviewed for this study married non-Muslims, citing 542 Imam Ibrahim Eze, interview cited. 543 Mohamed Mraja, Islamic Impacts on Marriage and Divorce among the Digo of Southern Kenya (Würzburg: Ergon Verlag, 2007), 110. 183

the above reasons as the prop for their actions. In one incidence an Igbo Muslim married two Igala women, one of who was a Christian and the other a Muslim. His reason for the first marriage was to reverse the pattern by which Muslims of other ethnic groups, through marriages to Igbo Christian women, win converts for Islam. Speaking generally of his efforts towards membership drives in favour of Islam he remarked: “Those I converted were northerners in 544 whose blood Islam already existed; I have converted no other person.” While Islam permits men to marry non-Muslim women, it forbids Muslim women from marrying non-Muslim men. Mutalib was one of many non-Igbo men whose Igbo wives reverted to Islam upon marriage and Mourihatu, one of a 545 growing population of Igbo women, who became Muslim through marriage. Ibrahim from Owerri, Imo State, also became Muslim by marriage before the Nigeria-Biafra war because his father-in-law gave that as the condition for his 546 marrying her daughter. More than four imams in Igboland reported an increase in the number of worshippers at their mosques resulting from mixed religious marriages involving Igbo women. The numerical disparity in the gender composition of Igbo Muslims that is responsible for the existence of more Igbo Muslim men than Igbo Muslim women would appear to have left few alternatives for the men than to marry non-Muslim women especially Christians many of who eventually convert to Islam. The alternative to marrying non-Muslim Igbo is marrying Muslim women from other ethnic groups. Not every Igbo Muslim, however, prefers this option. In 1975 Peil observed: “relatively little interethnic marriage 547 occurs in Nigeria, partly because of social pressure against it.” Although incidents of interethnic marriages have increased since 1975, it is still not commonly indulged in and become more difficult when it shows potentials of involving a religious change. Muslim men, as stated, engage in inter-religious marriages to win converts to Islam but they abhor giving their daughters to non-Muslims on the grounds 548 that such an action implies “agreeing to someone leaving Islam.” Their stand is also based on demographic reasons. In the first instance Igbo Muslim population is very small and, secondly, many converts “are not strong Muslims,” ob544 Dauda Ojobe, interview cited. 545 Alhaji Mutalib, b. 1940, interview, Ibagwa, May 2003; and Mourihatu, interview, Lagos, August 2003.

546 Mallam Ibrahim, interview, Port Harcourt, February 2006. 547 Margaret Peil, “Interethnic Contacts in Nigerian Cities,” Africa 45 (1975), 113. 548 Imam Ibrahim Eze, interview cited. 184

served Imam Ibrahim Eze. Further, exposing Muslims who are not grounded in Islam to other religious ideologies and codes of behavior may lead to their being completely lost to Islam. For these reasons, Igbo Muslims observe as a rule the injunction that their young members would not marry outside the fold except with the absolute confirmation that the un-believing partner joins the be549 liever in Islam. This principle, taught in mosques today, dates more than four decades ago and is credited to early Igbo Muslim converts who arrived at the 550 decision with the guidance of their Hausa and Nupe counsellors. Igbo Christian women marrying non-Igbo Muslim men roughly fall into seven categories. The categorisations were determined by the reasons they gave for their marriages to Muslims and eventual conversions to Islam: The first group comprised women who indeed married from an emotional point of view. They loved their spouses and married them for that reason and not for their religion or for other purposes. These women situate their conversion as attempts to please their partners and to communicate their love. The second category is of women who were assured by their Muslim husbands of their religious freedom but who after their marriages were constrained to convert to Islam. Following their conversion, they live as Muslims even when they feel and would wish otherwise. Some feared that their decision to 551 convert might work against them if they leave Islam. I asked an Imam Ibrahim Eze the possibility of a certain convert recanting later and he replied: 552 “No … The law is against that.” Perhaps this same “law” has kept some of the women in this group from leaving Islam. In these first two categories, conversions occurred after marriage and not before marriage, as was often the case for 553 women marrying Muslims. A third group is made up of women who married for protection. The women represented here reside in Northern Nigeria where periodic cases of Muslim aggression on Christians have increased in the last two decades and have become very thorny following the adoption from 2000 of the shari‘a legal code 554 by the twelve northern states. A female interviewee who lost a brother and a 549 Mallam Ahmed Omeje, interview cited. 550 Ibid. 551 In addition to the conversion ritual, a woman may be served a “spiritual drink,” prepared like a potion, by a mallam. This practice was mentioned in Northern Nigeria and not in the Southeast. 552 Imam Ibrahim Eze, interview cited. 553 Ibid. Also, Alhaji Sadauki, b. 1966, Sarikin Hausa of Uyo, interview, Uyo, May 2009. 554 Rose Nduka, b. 1975, interview, Kaduna, January 2006. 185

sister in the crisis of 2000 narrated as follows: “For fear of being killed, I ran to an Hausa friend of mine and let him marry me. Having learned much about the 555 religion, I think there is little difference between it and Christianity” The fourth category comprised women who needed to get married. For this group, time was ticking away and suitable men from other angles had not shown up. One of them said “I married an Hausa or Muslim because I have to be married like other women out there. It is very clear that a man and woman are meant to be together. It is not said that their being together should be guided by religious sentiments. So as other women are married, I am also mar556 ried.” The fifth group of women married non-Igbo Muslims because they are wealth. One woman in this category whose husband is from Kaduna State reported: “I married a Muslim because he likes me. He is a very wealthy man with lots of buildings and vehicles. I gave up my religion to marry him, which any other woman will do. Marriage should be based on true love and wants. My husband is very wealthy. He supplies all my needs. Today, I am a very 557 happy woman.” Wealthy northern Muslims commonly put their wives in seclusion, known to Igbo Muslims as Kulleh, and are not anxious for whatever extra resources their wives may attract to the family by engaging in paid work. No doubt, wealthy Nigerian Muslims appeal to many young women many of who described them as good providers. They have acquired a reputation that they generously allow their wives considerable financial freedom as long as they live by Islamic injunctions for women. Where right to free spending is the need of a woman, wealthy northern Muslims in particular make good marriage partners. Some women, however, reported conflicts, after they defaulted in her 558 conformity with Muslim norms. The sixth category of women who became Muslims through marriage switched religious boundaries for other reasons including the need to gain employment in highly regulated career fields and the quest for excellent paying jobs. The Nigerian Customs is one establishment that is difficult to get into. One female interviewee realized that she needed the influence of a Muslim to secure an employment with the Nigerian Customs and so married her second 555 Hajia Maimana Yankwero, b. 1976, interview, Onitsha, May 2006; Rose Nduka, interview cited. 556 Uchenna Usman, b. 1966, interview, Umuoji, February 2006. 557 Ujunwa Abubakar, b. 1969, interview, Orba, February 2006 558 Rose Nduka, interview cited; Charity Kolawole, interview, Nsukka, March 2006, and, Mrs. Aishat Adenikan, b. 1973, interview, Port Harcourt, May 2009. 186

husband for that purpose. With the influence of her husband the Nigerian Cus559 toms employed her. Perhaps, in this last group we can integrate women whose marriages to Muslims and subsequent conversions to Islam were facilitated by the relative sameness in the religious rituals they were accustomed to and what Islam proposed. An example of this category of women is one member of the Sabbath faith community who reported that there was no major difference in the religious obligations Islam enforced on women and what she was accustomed to in her Sabbath church. The only discernible difference, in her opinion, between Islamic regulations on women and that of the Sabbath Church is just the group nomenclature: As a member of the Sabbath church, I saw a lot of similarities with Islam. In the Sabbath we wash to purify ourselves before prayer … We don’t attend congregational prayers. These similarities motivated me 560 to marry him.” According to Peil’s 1975 study, of the three major ethnic groups in Nigeria, the Igbo and Hausa have more incidents of marriages outside their ethnic boundaries. This has worked spectacularly well in fostering the spread of Islam in Igboland. Relatives of women with Muslim husbands become drawn within the orbit of Islamic influences and some have through this closeness become Muslims themselves. One example is Aminatu Nze who narrated as follows: I lost my parents when I was a little girl. Fortunately, my elder sister that I was staying with got married to a Muslim. They did not discourage me from remaining a Christian. They allowed me to attend Church services on Sundays and every other day… My sister’s husband even wakes me up for mass on Sundays… After some years things started changing… Once in a while they will tell me about Islam, their beliefs and their way of life. So one day I followed them to the mosque. After the prayers some of their friends preached to me about Allah. They made me understand that Allah loves me. They also told me some other things that convinced me… Before then I have started falling in 561 love with the religion. Believe me, this is how I became a Muslim. 559 This interviewee, born in 1963, spoke on the condition of anonymity. The interview was held in Lagos in February 2006.

560 Chiamaka Ibrahim, b. 1952, interview, Onitsha, February 2006. 561 Aminatu Nze, b. 1977, interview, Owerri, February 2006. Other interviewees who spoke about their marriages to Muslim husbands include: Monsurat Ego Kareem, b. 1968, interview, Owerri; Obiageli Yakubu, b. 1974, interview, Onitsha; Adamma Mohammed, b. 187

Conversion of children to Islam Most Igbo converts to Islam were already adults above the age of eighteen at the time of their conversion. Nevertheless, a handful of children below that age have also converted to Islam independent of their parents and influences from other adult relatives. Three such persons were differently encountered during this study. Meetings with them took place in Igboland, Yorubaland, and Hausaland respectively. Of all three, Jabir, at thirteen years while in the junior secondary (JS) school, was the youngest to become a convert. He was the only one of the three with a parent who converted to Islam nearly a decade before his own conversion. He insists, however, that his conversion was the outcome of personal curiosity and fascination with the prayer motions of Muslims and was not influenced by his Muslim parent: I was in JS 3 when I came across the pamphlet: Call for Prayer… After reading it I felt like joining them. This decision was not fully because of conviction. I was only interested in their gymnastic form of prayer. What they were doing appeared like gymnastics to me. They pronounce Allah Akbar, they stand up, they kneel down … I was interested in those movements… Sometime later, I read more about Islam and became convinced to be a Muslim… It was not because I understood Muslims but because I understood Islam. Islam and its doctrine 562 are good. Although Jabir may not see the link, there is little doubt that his father remotely exposed him to Islam through creating situations whereby he became aware of Muslim religious attitude that eventually captivated his attention. It was from living with this parent that he came across the pamphlet he read, had contact with Muslims, observed their religious motions and became fascinated by same until he decided to join them in prayer even if initially just for the fun of it. The preliminary contacts continued giving way to genuine quest about Islam that ultimately convinced Jabir that Islam and its doctrine are good. The other two youths, Abdukareem and Cynthia, at the time of interview, had no Muslim relatives. They took to Islam after years of exposure to the religion from close interactions with Muslims. Their stories in some ways resemble 1971, interview, Onitsha; Aishatu Chioma Jubril, b. 1977, interview, Owerri; Bilikisu Adamma Ibrahim, b. 1954, interview, Owerri; and Chika Abdul, b. 1974, interview, Owerri. These interviews were held between January and February 2006. 562 Jabir Osuji, b. 1977, (converted to Islam in 1990), an undergraduate student of University of Maiduguri, interview, Enugu, May 2003. 188

the account of the non-Muslim Hausa Maguzuwa, many of whom, as Last 563 shows, converted to Islam through habituation. Abdukareem’s conversion occurred in Ogun State in Yorubaland where he was born and brought up. According to him, he associated mostly with Yoruba schoolmates during his secondary education. Very often after school he accompanied these friends to the Qur’anic school. He acknowledged being fascinated with “their opinions about 564 life.” From accompanying them to the Qur’anic school, he finally registered himself in the school and spent five years on Qur’anic education. Efforts by family and friends to dissuade him from Islam were fruitless. Abdukareem personally identified the environment he found himself in as what led to his conversion. Cynthia grew up in Northern Nigeria and had numerous female Muslim friends in school. She allowed a friend to convert her in 1997 at the age of fourteen. The process leading to her conversion began with her association with her friends. Acting on their encouragement, in school she attended classes on Islamic Religious Knowledge instead of Christian Religious Knowledge that was expected of students from Christian background. Part of the time she spent with her friends was invested in listening to them recite the Qur’an. She enthused: “It was so lovely reading and listening to them recite the Qur’an. Their mode of dressing was another thing that appealed to me. Their respect for their 565 religion and their character all motivated me into becoming a Muslim.” The Igbo residing in cities with a predominant Muslim community either in Northern or Western Nigeria convert relatively easily to Islam than those in the 566 homeland. Living and closely associating with Muslims in same residences, at schools, in the offices, and in the course of normal daily activities, bring within their orbit Muslim practices and the body of knowledge on which they rest. These contacts engender gradual assumption of Muslim behavior or sympathy for Islamic teachings until conversion occurs. On the one hand, these persons imbibe Muslim practices and ideas while they simultaneously loose touch with their former way of life. Even where no conversion has taken place, persons accustomed to Muslim mannerisms or dressings are commonly nicknamed “mallam” or “Alhaji” for men and “Hajia” for women by their Muslim 563 Last, “Some economic aspects of conversion in Hausaland,” 234-245. 564 Alfa Jamir Abdukareem, b. 1970, (converted to Islam in 1986), interview, Aba, September 2003.

565 Miss Cynthia Audu, b. 1974, (converted to Islam in 1997), undergraduate student of University of Nigeria, interview, Nsukka, February 2003.

566 See Anthony’s account of Igbo Muslims in Kano (Anthony, 2000). 189

neighbors and acquaintances and also by non-Muslim Igbo. Igbo men display influences of close associations with Muslims more than Igbo women. Abdukareem’s pattern of conversion is replicated among much younger children. These children’s admirations for Islam derived from their attendance at Islamic schools. The Islamic Centre at Enugu houses Al Huda Nursery and Primary School opened in 1991. At Enofia in Afikpo, Ebonyi State, less than two hours drive from Enugu, is also found the Islamic Secondary School established in 1973. Graduates of Al Huda primary school are among others who continue their secondary education at Afikpo. Both schools have been invaluable in exposing children to Islam. When education at Al Huda was free for all 567 students, Christian parents sent their children to the school. When they became aware that their children were mimicking a different religious tradition, which they learnt at the school, many withdrew their children from Al Huda. By June 2003, only one Christian family had a child studying in the school. The Enugu and Afikpo schools are mission-oriented establishments that aim at training students in Islamic precepts. Muslim clerics and activists have used the auspices of the secondary school to induct youths into Islam. The exposure to Islamic knowledge and way of life in the secondary school is such that the 568 chance of a graduate of the school being impervious to Islam is very slim. The case of an orphan recommended by a cleric for admission at the school is a useful example. Jameel was offered admission into the school at the age of sixteen. At the conclusion of his studies he was enamored with the passion of spreading his new faith and excitedly remarked: I find it joyful to be associated with the school. Now, not only am I able to read the Qur’an in its original language, I know western subjects as well. I can now boast of knowing two languages and can also teach the rudiments of Arabic language to people. The school is helpful in that it provides assistants and graduates who read and recite Qur’an to the people during worship and who teach Qur’anic injunctions to the people. Graduates…are playing important roles and hold important positions not only to the Muslim communities but also to 569 the society at large. 567 Al Huda eventually scraped its sponsorship programme for students because of financial constraints.

568 Others who spoke on the Islamic schools include: Alhaji Musa Ani, Mrs. Chinyere Okolie, Jabir Osuji, Alhaji Mutui, Alhaji Mutalib, and Mallam Omeje.

569 Jameel Okoroama, b. 1983, (began “to identify with Muslims in 1997”), interview, Asaba, October 2005. 190

Other factors contributing to conversions in Igboland Conversions, both permanent and temporary, were in addition to the factors mentioned above the results of a multi-pronged social process involving the converted and the converter. With respect to the latter, the human elements ranged from any ordinary Muslim to clerics. The quest for converts, though often denied by Igbo Muslim clerics who claim that they are not begging people to join Islam, still has a scriptural base. The Qur’an and Hadith present Islam as the divine and ultimate religion. Both enthrone the concept that all creatures are enjoined to submit to Allah. Since after the Nigeria-Biafra war Muslims from Northern, Western, and North Central Nigeria have made efforts to win converts from Igboland. These previously localized efforts later took on an international dimension when Islamic bodies began sending missionaries into Igboland. Igbo Muslims have themselves shown growing commitment to missionary work both in their determination to increase their numbers and also to bring about compliance with the concept that all creatures should submit to Allah. Igbo male converts of varying ages described themselves as Islamic missionaries. Meanwhile, majority, at the time of this study, had no connections with national and international Islamic missionary (da`wa) organizations but instead belonged to neighborhod da`wa societies in which they volunteer time and resources for proselytization. The promise of eternal blessings to be derived by converting unbelievers is strongly behind individual proselytization efforts as suggested by this remark: If you convert to Islam and it happens through me, I will have lada (i.e. blessing) in the sight of God. If the level of my lada was 10 per570 cent and I bring you into Islam, God will increase it to 25 percent. In broad terms, the drive for converts to Islam has a nation-wide scope. It can be regarded as partly responsible for the numerous post independence “jihadic” uprisings revolving around very minor and petty grievances but targeting nonMuslims. Such violent socio-religious intimidation has produced a number of unintended compliance with, and conversions to, Islam, sometimes through marriage for women, but whose true purpose includes the search for personal safety. Although the term Jihad is understood from its presentation in the Qur’an to denote a military struggle for Islam—this is a less form of jihad in contrast to the more important one, which is the personal struggles, the Al-Ji570 Mr. Abubakar Abugu, b. 1974, (“born into Islam”), an apprentice, interview in Amufie, March 2003. 191

had Al-Kabir—the underlying factor of the struggle is the conversion of infi571 dels. Horton puts it in context as a process “to force the population from pa572 ganism and “mixing” into pure Islam.” The many cases of religious-based violence in Nigeria that affect Christians, majority of which belong to the Igbo ethnic group, testify to the appropriateness of Horton’s summation. Another aspect of Muslim proselytization that is put forward in Nigeria and which was mentioned in the preceding chapter is the use of material enticements to win converts to Islam. It is not impossible for real experience to collide with ethno-religious demarcation and prejudices to discredit the virtues of this strategy just as it is equally possible for this strategy to be abused and used to manipulate conversions. In the following statement, Nathan Okeke, a former Igbo convert to Islam, discussed how this proselytization strategy works and some opinions about it: An Hausa will use money to bring you down to where he needs you. Where money cannot entice you, they cannot get you… Once they are good to you and you are friends, the first thing they will propose to you is to change your religion. If you change, they will give you money. If you want to be an international businessman, they will set you up as long as you change from Christianity to Islam… At times at the mosque they discuss how to convert people. They will tell the person who is close, or friendly, to the individual they want to convert to go ahead with the work, promising that they will contribute whatever 573 he needs for it. The story of Jubril Ocha’s journey into Islam may again be necessary here: I came to Kano as a young man. I got a job with a rich mallam who loved me very much and called me son… He told me that he will make me rich and will give me his daughter in marriage if I become a Muslim. So I converted. My relations felt very bad but I did not care; I 574 got what I wanted. Material enticements work well in situations where a group has been starved of 571 K. S. Vikor, “Jihad in West Africa: A Global Theme in a Regional Setting,” in Lief Manger (ed.), Muslim Diversity: Local Islam in Global Contexts (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press 1999), 80. 572 Horton, “On the Rationality of Conversion,” Part II, Africa, 45 (4) (1975), 384. 573 Nathan Okeke, b. 1969, interview, Kaduna, January 2006. 574 Mr. Jubril Ocha, interview cited. 192

opportunities. After the Nigeria–Biafra war, the numbers of the Igbo in the Nigerian army greatly diminished as many were compulsorily retired for their role in the Biafra conflict. The ethnic imbalance thus created has since re575 mained. The same applies to the Nigerian Customs Department. In Northern Nigeria, under the policy of indigenization, non-Muslims report discriminations with respect to job entitlements like promotions and deployment in individual 576 fields of specialization. Non-Muslim self-employed professionals also report low patronage for their services. For many non-Muslims, the veritable way of combating these challenges is by conversion to Islam. An Igbo soldier narrated that after endlessly waiting for promotion he sought the advice of one of his senior colleagues who told him to realign his religious identity. Compliance 577 with the suggestion produced his missed promotions. This story has similarities with that of a lawyer who after many years of practice with little progress in his career eventually decided to become Muslim. In this case, his Muslimborn relatives were indignant of his action and asked me “what kind of Islam is 578 that; his Islam is not from his heart.” Many in Igboland, including converts to Islam, presuppose that the various governments of Nigeria since the civil war in 1970, through pressures exerted by official policies of exclusion, force the Igbo into Islam. Nnorom shows that the experience of the Igbo who through social pressures become Muslims is replicated globally. Part of the history of Egyptian Copts, he quotes, read: “Banned from the army and important government positions, large numbers converted to Islam in order to take advantage of the benefits of full citizen579 ship.” Speaking on Igbo converts in Northern Nigeria, Nathan Okeke had this to say: “Many Igbo who are being converted do so because of money or to get a 575 Egodi Uchendu, Women and Conflict in the Nigerian Civil War (Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 2007), 190-192.

576 The Igbo are not the only group experiencing discrimination in Northern Nigeria. However, they constitute the highest number of victims by virtue of being the non-Hausa group with the highest number of settlers. (See Anthony’s account on page 426 of the Igbo in Kano city alone). The wide dispersal of the Igbo outside Eastern Nigeria since the colonial days is explained by the severe population pressure in the Igbo homeland combined with an intense desire for economic improvement. Many went to Northern Nigeria where their entrepreneurial and technical skills were in demand among a widely non-western educated population. Like the Igbo and other non-Muslims in Northern Nigeria, Muslims from Northern Nigeria also face their own set of setbacks in Southern Nigeria. 577 Mr. Shittu Nwabueze, b. 1955, interview, Ukpani, February 2006. 578 Mrs. Asmau Shittu, interview cited. 579 Columba Nnorom, “Islam in Igboland: Lessons in History.” 193

580

job, to be a businessman, or just to have their support...” We have already mentioned the case of the Headmaster at Yelwa who became Muslim because it would serve his career better. Material enticements could also be applied in the absence of any known social disadvantage. My two male research assistants were offered large sums of money and scholarships to accept Islam. They were given instances of youths like them who accepted such gifts and who became Muslims. The first of the two assistants, who interviewed some cattle dealers in Abia State, reports: … After the interview he asked me to become a Muslim that he will be paying me one hundred and fifty thousand naira [USD 1202.40] and also sponsor my education. His colleague who assisted me in Onitsha, Anambra State, says: My host took me to lunch. In the course of our discussion he revealed that his reason for becoming a Muslim was because of the many opportunities that abound in Islam. He cited economic and political opportunities as what made him change his religion. He said these to persuade me to accept Islam. These were contrary to his earlier claims 581 of divine revelation… The value of what is offered the first assistant would be appreciated from statistics of earnings of Nigerian civil servants. A secondary school teacher in a state-owned school and a medical doctor at a government hospital earn an an582 nual salary of 1,920 USD and 6,720 USD respectively. The sum promised is 701 USD less than the annual salary of a secondary school teacher. For a young man in his twenties that was a huge amount of money. Muslim proselytization in Igboland is driven both by the quest for religious members in a supposedly fertile mission field and the assumption, expressed by some Muslim clerics in Igboland, of possible political unity for Nigeria that will result when the three major ethnic groups in the country are unified by one re583 ligion. These three ethnic groups—Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba—account for a 580 Nathan Okeke, interview cited. 581 Extracts from field notes by Obi Ugo, b. 1981, Nsukka. 582 “Nigeria: Facts and figures.” Source: BBC News, Published 2007/04/17 http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/6508055.stm

583 Clerics who individually made this suggestion were Imam Ibrahim Eze of the Nsukka town central mosque; Sheikh Idris Al-Hassan, Director of the Islamic Center at Enugu; and Alhaji Musa Ani, secretary of the Islamic Center at Enugu. 194

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little more than seventy percent of the nation’s entire population. The Secretary of the Islamic Centre at Enugu elaborated that Igbo conversions to Islam would bring about “absolute confidence between the different ethnic groups, peace and love” that would end “all the problems of the Igbo today, which were 585 the result of the Igbo not considering Islam as a religion.” Proponents of this view lament the state of Islamic proselytization in Igboland. Says the Ghanaian-born missionary in Enugu: “I am not happy that Muslims are not doing much about the Igbo. They are not doing what I expect them to do. I mean the Nigerian Muslims in general. The Igbo have churches in Kaduna, Kano, everywhere. They are preaching and sponsoring programmes. Our own Muslims are 586 doing nothing.” It does not appear that the ordinary Hausa and Igbo Muslim also espouse this hope of political unity via religious affiliation.

584 National Population Commission, Nigeria’s 2006 Census (Abuja: 2007). 585 Alhaji Musa Ani, interview cited. 586 Sheikh Idris Al-Hassan, interview cited. 195

CHAPTER 6 “IT IS MY FAITH, IT BELONGS TO ME:” RESPONSES TO CONVERSIONS TO ISLAM

From what we saw in the previous chapter, conversions to Islam among the Igbo derived from the interplay of internal and external factors whose lines of demarcation were in some cases blurred. These factors include the genuine spiritual quest and conviction that Islam is the appropriate way to God; the recognition of Islam as a universal religion; perceived divine influence through dreams and revelations; mixed religious marriages; the desire for integration within established Muslim financial and political networks, which was heightened by the political and economic marginalization of the Igbo since the Nigeria-Biafra war; dissatisfaction with a previous religious group; the results of habituation; proselytization among the Igbo by Muslims whose other goal, besides gaining converts, is bringing about political unity in the country, and, the 587 pull of financial and other inducements. This chapter is concerned with a number of issues especially the complex interplay of religious and ethnic identities of Igbo Muslims including the mapping of religious values on ethnic ones. Also discussed are recent transformations within the Igbo Muslim community. Of note is the disconnection since the 1990s of ethnicity from religion, which is one result of the progress of Islamic education in Igboland. The responses in Igboland of Igbo conversions to Islam and the challenge to Igbo Christian identity and traditional values are also considered.

Induction into Islam The Nigerian constitution supports the right of self-determination of one’s faith. Igbo Muslims trying to establish their right to be Muslims and to refute assumptions by other Igbo that Islam is incompatible with Igbo identity severally reiterated this. The process of conversion to Islam in Igboland is not different from what is known about the mechanics of conversion to Islam generally: an intending male convert informs a Muslim, generally an imam (a Muslim religious leader or the head of a specific Muslim community that worship in a 587 A version of this chapter is published as “Being Igbo and Muslim: The Igbo of Southeastern Nigeria and conversions to Islam, 1930s to recent times,” Journal of African History, 51 (2010), 63-87. 196

particular mosque), if personally acquainted with one, of his decision to become Muslim. Some first try to obtain basic knowledge about Islam or discuss their intentions with people around them, friends as well as family members who appeared predisposed to support their move. Once the decision to convert is taken, the intending convert contacts an imam directly or through an acquaintance. In response, the imam invites the individual to the next Friday worship at the mosque. Dauda Ojobe’s conversion in 1971 followed this pattern. When Ojobe (b. 1929) informed the imam in his community that he wished to become Muslim, he was asked to return the following Friday to communicate his intentions to the community of Muslim believers in his village, majority of whom were non-Igbo. In 1990, at Kaduna, Nathan Okeke (b. 1969) passed through a similar process to become a Muslim, even though he had been a regular visitor 588 for some time at the mosque, taking part in prayer and other acts of worship. At the end of the Friday congregational prayer, and in conjunction with the counselling of the imam, the potential convert informs the congregation of his intention to be Muslim. He is told of the basic observances of Muslims, namely avoidance of alcohol, cultivation of perpetual love for all, and observance of the five-daily prayers. If the newcomer pledges commitment to these acts of worship, he is led through the ritual bath of purification (Tahāra), a symbolic bath performed without cosmetic soap. The ritual is interspersed with some recitations and the confession of the Shahāda, by which the convert affirms “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet.” Igbo Muslim leaders and 589 converts commonly refer to this event as the “Muslim baptism”. Fitted into the induction are lessons on pre-prayer ritual washing or ablutions. It appears that there has been no significant change in this ritual from what was described by Abdurrahman Doi based on his observations in Ibagwa in 1965: The intending convert is given a bath, and is dressed in a white robe especially prepared for him for this occasion; then he is brought to the mosque where fellow Muslims of different ethnic origin assemble to 588 Nathan Okeke, b. 1969, interview, Kaduna, January 2006. (Nathan later left Islam and re-embraced Christianity.) Women’s conversions are not made public: they are private affairs that occur in the private space of the home (Hajia Khadija Essen, b. 1954, interview at Uyo, May 2009; and, Mrs. Amina Ihuoma Kundi, b. 1980, interview at Port Harcourt, May 2009.) 589 Interviews with Sheihk Idoko, b. 1958 (“ born into Islam“), chief imam of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, mosque, June 2003: Imam Ibrahim Eze, c. 1938, (“born into Islam”), chief imam of Nsukka town central mosque; Alhaji Musa Ani, b. 1955, secretary of the Islamic Center in Enugu, interview, May 2003; and, Nathan Okeke, interview cited. 197

witness the conversion. The Shahāda is pronounced and repeated by the convert and the Imam gives him guidance on Islamic matters. Then the Jama’ah, i.e., the gathering, cheer the new convert, saying Alhamdu Lillad and Allahu Akbar, after which the congregation donate whatever they can to help their new Muslim brother, from one 590 kobo to one naira. In nearly all African Muslim communities, the mere profession of faith has 591 been sufficient for admission into the Muslim community. The conversion ceremony is a public proclamation (witnessed only by Muslims), symbolizing the rejection of any previous religious tradition for Islam. Candidates for conversion who fail to submit to the ceremony do not regard themselves as Muslims and are also not regarded as such by other Muslims, although some may retain 592 strong interests in Islam, even practicing it somewhat in daily life. As part of the conversion process, the convert is guided to choose a new name. At the naming ceremony a ram may be slaughtered. With or without a special naming ceremony, new names of Arabic origin, either with Islamic connotation or not, are adopted to replace the convert’s first name or last name. The name change reflects the convert’s new faith. Name change after conversion was common with early converts from Nsukka, Abakailiki, and Owerri Divisions of Eastern Nigeria before 1967. Hausa and Nupe mallams (scholars) who came to Igboland as traders and as companions of Muslim traders officiated in those naming ceremonies. Adult naming ceremonies were not as elaborate as the naming of children born to Muslim converts, described by the imam Ibrahim Eze: When Hausa Muslims from Kano came to Ibagwa, they gave names to children born to the Igbo who joined them in Islam. They took a barber to the naming ceremony and he barbed the hair of the new baby and gave it facial marks. They gave us facial marks. They taught 590 Abdurrahman Doi, Islam in Nigeria (Zaria: Gaskiya Corporation, 1984), 177. 591 Humphrey Fisher, “Conversion Reconsidered: Some aspects of religious conversions in Black Africa,” Africa 43 (1973), 33.

592 Anthony (2000, p. 436) records the case of Senator Arthur Nzeribe whose much publicized conversion, scheduled to take place at the Emir’s palace in Kano in December 1989, did not hold because Nzeribe never showed up. I came across another Igbo who, despite pre conversion training in Islamic knowledge also did not appear at the mosque where his conversion ceremony was to take place. See Douglas Anthony, “Islam does not belong to them: Ethnic and religious identities among male converts in Hausaland,” Africa 70 (2000), 422-441. 198

us that since we have joined Islam, we should observe their cus593 tom … The imam’s story was corroborated by a former female Muslim of Igala origin of North Central Nigeria married to an Igbo. She noted: “The Muslim naming ceremony was full of celebration. Once a child was a week old, the hair was 594 barbed and marks were made on the face.” Conversion to Islam brought changes in the lifestyle of Igbo converts. Taking on new names to reflect a new religious identity also occurred during the early decades of Christian missionary activities in the Southeast and elsewhere in Nigeria. As Christian converts had their local names changed in mission schools to Christian or European names, in like manner Muslim mallams supervised the adoption of Islamic or Arabic names for Igbo converts to Islam. The Muslim name change does not derive from any borrowing from Christian missionaries but has an independent origin that dates to the foundation of Islam, during which time the adoption of new names signified personal worship or confession of one’s faith. Name change, Frank Salamone points out, made fur595 ther identification with one’s religious community easier. Igbo Muslims in596 terpreted it as an indication of the authenticity of their conversion claims. Until the end of the 1980s, widely differing opinions were held concerning the emphasis on Arabic or Islamic names for Igbo converts. The 1990s, however, saw a change in Igbo Muslims’ disposition to this identification policy and its relevance. Since then, imams of Igbo origin have advocated that new converts to Islam should retain their vernacular or Christian names while also adopting an Arabic name as the first or middle name. Imam Ibrahim Eze, one of the oldest Igbo imams, explained the discourse underpinning this change in practice, which results from their understanding that Islam does not call for a loss of ethnic identity: In the early days of Islam some of the Arab Muslims retained their pre-conversion names. God ruled that they should retain their names … There were actually many early Arab Muslims who retained the 593 Imam Ibrahim Eze, interview cited. 594 Mrs. Hawakwunu Josephine Okoroafor, b. 1946, interview at Inyi, August 2005. (Hawakwunu became a Christian after her marriage in 1963.)

595 Frank A. Salamone, “Becoming Hausa: Ethnic identity change and its implications for the study of ethnic pluralism and stratification,” Africa 45 (1975), 417.

596 Imam Hassan Omeh Musa, c. 1947, (“born into Islam”), a tailor and the imam of Obukpa mosque, interview, Obukpa, May 2003. 199

original names their parents gave them. Here in Igboland, a long time ago, we debated this issue and agreed that converts should retain their original names provided they are practicing Muslims. However, there is an Islamic injunction that revertees should choose one of the old prophetic names. Apart from taking on a new name, Igbo converts were given facial markings by Muslim mentors from Nupe and Kano to align them with their ethno religious customs. Facial marks were indeed part of the cultural marker of some riverine Igbo groups but had no religious basis. These Igbo communities gave marks to their members during the long centuries of the slave trade when these marks served as safeguard for clan members and also facilitated quick identification of slave victims. By the time colonial rule was established and pax Britannica enforced, the need for marks dwindled and the practice lost its prominence for those communities that relied on it as they would on their modern international passports. It continued, however, in Alor Agu in Nsukka Division, where it assumed a new significance, being associated with conversion to Islam. C. K. Meek records that facial marks were used by Hausa ethnic communities in Northern Nigeria and Islamized communities in North Central Nigeria for a variety of reasons: to distinguish their members from other ethnic groups; to prevent loss of identity during the slave period; and, afterwards, as adornment or as an indication of membership in Islam. He writes: Religious ideas also exert a modifying influence on the system of scarification. Thus the alternated triple lines at the corner of the mouth, such as used by the Nupe of Bida, by the younger generation of Kakanda, and by many other Islamized [groups] of Ilorin, Nupe, Nassarawa, and Munshi provinces, are said to be an indication that the 597 parents of children so marked were Muhammadan. Encouraged by Muslim mallams of Nupe, Hausa, and Yoruba origin, Igbo converts to Islam learned the rudiments of their new faith, giving emphasis to prayers and their set times, and to identification with Islamic practices such as the wearing of Muslim clothing; in reality, this required converts to be dressed in gowns according to the fashion of Muslim Hausa, and many years later in their Yoruba variants by those who did not wish to align themselves so closely 597 C. K. Meek, The Northern Tribes of Nigeria: An Ethnographical Account of the Northern Provinces of Nigeria together with a Report on the 1921 Decennial Census, Vol. I. (London: 1925), 44-45. 200

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with Hausa Muslim identify. Nupe and Hausa Muslim settlers in Igboland had begun by the 1950s to integrate their converts within existing Hausa and Nupe settlements. Thus, Igbo Muslims, with their Hausa and Nupe mentors created distinct Muslim communities within existing Igbo communities. These communities have survived today and are found at Alor Agu, Ogrute, and Ibagwa, all in the Nsukka area of Enugu State as well as in Owerri and Orlu in Imo State. In Enohia, Ebonyi State, where group conversion of a quarter of the village occurred in 1958, the reverse was the case, as the Igbo Muslim community took the initiative of incorporating Muslim migrants from Northern and North Central Nigeria within its territory to help train them in the way of Islam. The relevance of these religious communities lay in the fact that basic Islamic precepts with the necessary base culture were thus more easily transferred to new converts. The realistic conclusion would be that the practice of Islam by the Igbo in its early stages followed the Hausa prototype, with many Hausa cultural details. Converts lived in a kind of apprenticeship arrangement, attached to Hausa or Nupe traders, some of whom doubled as itinerant mallams, for purposes of learning Islamic worship and the daily routine of believers from the original custodians, as these groups were considered to be. Converts imitated their spiritual mentors in nearly everything, and their wives—most of whom converted along with them—also conformed to the pattern of the daily routine of Hausa Muslim women. My oldest female interviewee, who was born when “there was no school” remarked: I was young when I entered Islam. If at that age you were married, you were required to be obedient to your husband. Whatever he told you not to do, you did not do it. If he said do not go out, you did not 599 go. When he decides to let you go, you go. Nevertheless, learning the rudiments of the faith at a time and in an environment where the facilities for it were lacking or inadequate was challenging, judging from the experience of Igbo converts to Islam in the 1950s to 1970s. Referring to the life of his father, who became Muslim in Enugu Ezike in the 598 The best example of this group is Alhaji Idris Okonkwo Eze, b. 1953, (became a Muslim in 1964), a tailor, interview, Nsukka, May 2003. Alhaji Eze joined his elder brother, Imam Ibrahim Eze, into Islam when he lived with him. 599 Mrs. Ramatu Mohammed Omeje, c. 75, (became a Muslim as a young girl following her marriage to a Muslim), interview at Enugu Ezike, June 2003. The reference to “when there was no school” suggests that her birth would have taken place in the late 1920s in her home community of Enugu Ezike. The first school in her village was established in 1930. 201

1950s, Sheikh Idoko observed: “Actually my father was not so learned in the 600 Qur’an. He learned just the basics, like the prayer.” Alhaji Musa Ani recalled his experience after his conversion to Islam in Enugu in 1975: It was not easy knowing what was going on. I joined them in prayer without knowing what they were saying. I just marked my head on the ground as I saw them mark their heads on the ground. And, the 601 Hausa man was not literate to educate you… From the inception of the Igbo Muslim community at the turn of the 1950s, adult converts to Islam arranged for Qur’anic education for their male children. Some sent their children to itinerant mallams who served the Hausa Muslim migrant community to train them in the recitation of the Qur’an. Others sent their sons to Northern and North Central Nigeria for their Qur’anic education. Learning centers patronized included Akpanya, Nassarawa, Keffi, Kano, and Sokoto. The first crop of Igbo Muslim children who learned to recite the Qur’an outside Igboland did so in the 1950s, before the establishment in 1958 of the first Qur’anic school in Igboland at Ibagwa-aka in Nsukka Division. Two foreign teachers, one of whom was a Sudanese, served the school. A second school was established in 1963 in Enohia in the old Abakaliki Division. The Ibagwa and Enohia Qur’anic schools were destroyed during the civil war. Only the Enohia school has since been rehabilitated. For the years when the Ibagwa school 602 functioned, it suffered from lack of funds and unavailability of teachers. From 1970, after the civil war, other Qur’anic schools were opened at Owerri (Imo State) and in the army barracks of Enugu (Enugu State) and Onitsha (Anambra State) for families of non-indigene soldiers of the Nigerian army stationed in those places. The Qur’anic schools offered basic knowledge of Arabic language to help Muslim children say their prayer in its original language. Proper knowledge of Arabic language and Islamic studies was acquired outside Igboland. In 1973, the proposal to establish an Islamic primary school that would combine formal school curriculum with Islamic subjects was first publicly disclosed. A newspaper report states: The first Islamic school in the East Central State is to be sited at Enugu. The school will admit pupils from all parts of the state… The 600 Sheikh Idoko, interview cited. 601 Alhaji Musa Ani, interview cited. 602 In May 2003, when I visited the school, the building was in ruins lacking doors and windows and with neither pupils nor teachers but occupied by roving domestic animals. 202

Igbo Muslim leader in Enugu, Malam Sulaiman Onyeama, said it was decided at a recent representative meeting of Muslim leaders in the 603 state. Post 1980 converts would appear to have had better opportunities than the older generation, although still not comparable with what could be obtained in the Muslim states of Northern Nigeria or in Western Nigeria, which also boasts 604 a large Muslim population that dates to about the late sixteenth century. In 1988, a second Qur’anic school in the Nsukka area was opened at Obukpa, and another in 2002 at the Nsukka town market for children of traders or Northern Nigeria origin. The market school is supervised by the Sarkin Doya, the Hausa chief of the market responsible for coordinating the business of traders of Northern and North Central Nigeria origin. It is supported from donations from Northern Nigeria and the contributions of the local Muslim community. In much of Igboland, Qur’anic schools operate in the evenings and at weekends to avoid interfering with the schedule of government schools. More recent Qur’anic schools are found at the cattle markets of Enugu, Umuahia, and Lokponta in Abia State, serving families of traders from Northern Nigeria. On the whole, the Qur’anic schools in Igboland report poor attendance of children of Igbo Muslims, most of whom engage with their education at the government schools. Far better access to Islamic religious education was obtained in Northern and Western Nigeria. In addition to these provisions, Igbo converts living in those parts of the country were also integrated with indigenous Muslims soon after conversion, for the same purposes of transferring religious precepts and basic Islamic culture to new converts, just as occurred in Igboland from the 1950s and onwards. Speaking of Kaduna State in the 1990s, one interviewee observed: The Igbo who converted to Islam stayed with a mallam for a period of time to learn about Islam… Previously they were not doing that until the Hausa discovered that the Igbo were more interested in their money than in their religion … Now, when they get an Igbo convert, 605 they keep him with a mallam in a place like Tudunwada. 603 “Islamic school to be built in Enugu,” The New Nigerian Newspaper, March 15, 1973, p. 2. 604 J. D. Y. Peel, Religious Encounter and the Making of the Yoruba (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2000), 190-191.

605 Nathan Okeke, interview cited. Tudunwada is one of the exclusive Muslim residential areas in Kaduna city, Kaduna State. The 2000 sharia crisis in Kaduna State redefined 203

Besides the direct contact with mallams who were on hand to guide the young convert along his religious obligations, Islamic schools were readily available and offered basic Qur’anic education and advanced Islamic studies, all in a far more ideal setting than could be offeres in the Southeast. Conversion seems to have elicited its own excitement. Male converts reported feelings of intoxication with their new faith after conversion. Their enthusiasm was variously displayed, but one obvious outcome was the quick adoption of flowing gowns. Alhaji Musa Ani, who converted to Islam in 1975, asserted: I started wearing babariga (Hausa style flowing gowns) without wasting time and one long cap longer than [President] Shagari’s. People called me Aboki (another local term for Hausa Muslims) and ‘Alhaji ba Mecca’ (a Muslim pilgrim who has not performed the hajj). 606 I did not hide what I was doing. I was proud… Such enthusiastic converts took on with equal speed the task of convincing family members—wives, children, siblings, and, where possible, friends and associates to become Muslims. Unmarried Igbo male converts accelerated their process of adaptation to their new religious family by taking Muslim wives. Suitable wives were found without much difficulty in the Nsukka area of northern Igboland and in Kogi State, in North Central Nigeria. It appears to have been considerably easier, however, to marry from Hausaland. It spared most grooms the problem of convincing non-Muslims to marry them. Moreover, where a non-Muslim woman may readily agree to marry a Muslim male, the same ease of acceptance of the marriage cannot be guaranteed from her relatives. A few converts also mentioned the simplified marriage rites of Muslims as another appealing reason for marrying women from Muslim-dominated communities. For many interviewees, it is easier practicing Islam in areas with predominant Muslim populations than in the Igbo homeland. Perhaps because of this, a good many Igbo converts to Islam residing outside their villages are not known in their home communities as Muslims because they never disclosed that identity there. Clearly visible outward markers were associated with Igbo converts to Islam, as already noted. Indeed, there is no doubt that conversion to Islam went hand in hand with the reception of various manifestations of Hausa culture. Abdurrahman Doi, the Pakistani Muslim scholar who labored in the 1960s with settlement patterns in Kaduna designating Muslim areas from non-Muslim areas and limiting interpersonal contacts between Muslims and non-Muslims. 606 Alhaji Musa Ani, interview cited. Aboki is one of the Igbo terms for Hausa Muslims. 204

few Muslim expatriates and non Igbo academics affiliated with the University of Nigeria to fan the fire of Islam into flame in Ibagwa and Obukpa communities of Nsukka Division, confirms this connection: Those Ibos who have accepted Islam have automatically accepted the material manifestation of Islamic culture. With the acceptance of Islam, they have accepted the ideal of the universal brotherhood in Islam and look upon other Muslims as their Ikhwan fid Deen i.e. 607 ‘brethren in Islam’. 608

What Doi calls “Islamic culture” in reality became hausanization. This process, which was a more-or-less direct result of conversion, according to nonMuslim Igbo assumptions, differed in its degree with individual converts and their locations. For most Igbo Muslims in Southeast Nigeria, hausanization manifested in the dress pattern, the style of the child-naming ceremony, Islamic dietary prescriptions, and the interjection of a few Hausa words into common parlance. The use of these words had so far been restricted to Muslims and is not very common among the Igbo generally. The popular ones were Kulleh (“seclusion”), karatu (“Qur’ran”), kafirci (“unbeliever”), makaranta (“Qur’ranic 609 school”), and musulachi (“mosque”). Most Igbo Muslims, including clerics, retained the use of Chukwu (the Igbo term for God) in place of Allah in their references to the Exalted One. Post-conversion transformation was observed more with men than with women, for whom many of the Muslim markers were blurred by customary Igbo demeanor. The grooming and comportment of Igbo Muslim women closely resembled the style of non-Muslims, so that very rarely were their religious affiliations discerned, even from their attire. The wife of a chief imam, who was “born into Islam”, disclosed her avoidance of headscarves and other Muslim markers in public out of consideration for her business, which she did not want to harm by revealing her religious identity. However, she never failed to have a scarf handy so that she was not hindered from saying her prayers at 610 the appropriate times. While emphasis was not laid on female public participation in general prayers, the situation was different for men, whose conversion

607 Doi, Islam in Nigeria, 177. 608 Hausanization here refers to the process of adopting Hausa Muslim culture by Igbo converts to Islam. 609 These terms were picked out during interviews with Igbo Muslims. 610 Mrs. Memuna Eze, b. 1958 by Muslim parents, interview, Nsukka, March 2003. 205

become known when regularly seen walking to the mosque with Hausa and other known Muslims. Among Igbo Muslims found in major cities of Northern Nigeria, the degree of hausanization varied: one group appeared completely assimilated into Hausa culture, while the attitudes of another resembled those of their brethren in the homeland. For those fully assimilated, their spouses were Hausa and their children were raised as Hausa. Douglas Anthony’s study of Igbo Muslims in Kano city shows that, in many cases, the fully hausanized had severed all links with their non-Muslim families in the Southeast and also with the Southeast itself. For the category with a lesser degree of hausanization, spouses were largely Igbo, Igala, or even Hausa but their children were raised as Igbo. One reason for the thorough hausanization by Igbo Muslims in Northern Nigeria, as found in this study, was the need to adapt completely to the religious requirements; in 611 the minds of many Igbo Muslims, Hausa culture best typifies Islam. Another reason, disclosed by Anthony, was the need to avoid being tainted by the hypocrisy of less ingenuous Igbo converts, who nominally join Islam for economic 612 reasons but recant later. Just as converts living in Northern Nigeria showed tendencies indicative of some degree of hausanization, so also did converts residing in Western Nigeria, although, for this group, the degree of cultural influence appeared minimal.

The benefits of conversion In addition to the spiritual wellbeing anticipated from conversion, there were fringe benefits that Igbo converts associated with being Muslim. Muslims in Nigeria have long gained a reputation for helping each other, and this, for the most part, was the motivation for several pragmatic conversions. An early documentation of such conversions in Nigeria was Murray Last’s account of the Maguzawa of Northern Nigeria in the 1960s and 1970s, who though practically richer than their Muslim neighbors converted to Islam for purposes of expand613 ing economic interests. Conversions to Islam in Igboland have similarly been 614 associated with gaining economic and political benefits. Muslim benevolence 611 The most eloquent proponent of this view is Alhaji Musa Ani. 612 Anthony, “Islam does not belong to them,” 426-432, 436. 613 Murray Last, “Some economic aspects of conversion in Hausaland (Nigeria),” in Nehemiah Levtzion (ed.), Conversion to Islam (New York, 1979), 236.

614 Nathan Okeke, interview cited; and, Mr. Joe Odo, b. 1953, interview, Enugu, November 2003. 206

was helpful when converts were made: assistance rendered by older Muslims cushioned the harsh reactions of relatives, friends, and colleagues opposed to a new convert’s resolution; help from other believers was reportedly relied upon during stressful moments. The first generation of Igbo converts to Islam, during the 1930s to 1950s, spoke effusively about the benevolence of Nupe and Hausa Muslims to them. It was widely reported at Enugu Ezike that persons who showed interest in Islam in the 1920s found a mentor in Ibrahim Aduku, a Muslim horse trader of Nupe origin, who took on local citizenship in the town in the 1920s. Aduku facilitated local interest in Islam through generous provisions of credit to both traders and non-traders. The fruits of his labor in terms of outright conversion of the local people to Islam were not very significant, being limited to his wives and children and perhaps a few indigenes who became 615 converts many years after his death in 1931. Through similar acts of patronage Sheikh Ibrahim Nwagui of Enofia, in the Afikpo village group of Abakaliki Division, now in Ebonyi State, drew indi616 genes of Enofia into Islam from 1958 until his death in 1975, just as Hausa and foreign Muslim missionaries of Saudi origin did in Mbaise, Imo State, 617 between 1970 and 1974. This latter group of Igbo Muslims, the post-civil-war converts, enjoyed educational sponsorships that took them to foreign Muslim countries for study. Among the earliest beneficiaries of such scholarships was Mallam Isa Ekeji, one of the first converts to Islam in Mbaise: he was trained at the University of Damascus in Syria. Between 1970 and 1990, converts of varying ages received scholarships to study in Saudi Arabia in particular, but also in Egypt, Libya, and Pakistan. Such opportunities became incentives for encour615 Mallam Ibrahim Eze, Alhaji Idris Okonkwo Eze, Imam Hassan Omeh Musa, Mallam Ahmed Omeje, Garba Oheme, Dauda Ojobe, interviews cited. Also, Adam Usman, c. 1953, (“born into Islam”), interview, Nsukka, May 2003; Chief Abubakar Bello, Sarkin Hausa of Aba, interview, Aba, July 2003; and Ibrahim Agbedo, b. 1951, interview, Enugu Ezike, January 2004. See, Mr. V. K. Johnson, “Intelligence report on the people of Enugu Ezike, Nsukka Division,” File OP 1071/ONDIST 12/1/709 (October 1934), National Archives, Enugu. 616 Sheikh Haroun Aja, b. 1958, (“born into Islam”), islamic instructor, interview, Abakaliki, September 2003; Hajia Sayatu Aja, b. 1960, grand daughter of Sheikh Ibrahim Nwagui and president of Young Muslim Women Association, interview, Abakaliki, September 2003; and Sheikh Obini Ekpe, b. 1958, lecturer, interview, Abakiliki, January 2004. Also, Ottenberg, “A Muslim Igbo village,” 231-259. 617 Mallam Isa Ugiri, b. 1926, (converted to Islam in 1966), an imam, interview, Aboh Mbaise, January 2006; Mr. I. Ala, b. 1941, (converted to Islam in 1975 as Mallam Usman, recanted in 1987 and joined the Igbo religion), interview at Mbaise, February 2006; and, Mallam Isa Ekeji, b. 1938, (converted to Islam in 1974), interview at Mbaise, February 2006. 207

aging Igbo male youths into Islam. Comparatively, far fewer female Muslims enjoyed similar benefaction—doing so as rewards for their fathers’ conversions —and their sponsorship was by and large for secondary education within Ni618 geria. Until the 1980s, study scholarships to Saudi Arabia were for both secondary and tertiary education. This changed in the 1990s, according to Sheikhs Idoko and Abugu, when scholarships were given essentially for university programmes only, with candidates for secondary education partly or fully sponsored to study within Nigeria, preferably in Northern Nigeria. The main subjects of study at Islamic Universities were Islamic sciences and Islamic jurisprudence. Comparatively few scholarship-holders gained their degrees in the pure and applied sciences; there is no record so far of any graduate from the Arts and Hu619 manities. The Muslim World League (MWL), popular among Igbo Muslims as Rabita (from Rabita al-Alam al-Islami), was cited by several interviewees as the major sponsor of study scholarships to Igbo Muslims. It is also the organization that trained nearly all the Sheikhs in Igboland in Saudi Arabia. These, on completion of their training, were posted back as missionaries to Igboland. The MWL was founded by, and in, Saudi Arabia in 1962 as an agency for the spread of Is620 lam and the promotion of Islamic unity. It is financed by various Muslim countries, whose membership in the organization is voluntary, but Saudi Arabia is its acknowledged major donor. Of its eight bodies and their functions, the two whose presence have been felt in Igboland in the past two decades are the International Islamic Organization for Education and the International Islamic Relief Organization. It can be said that Rabita, through its educational and other opportunities 618 Alhaji Mutui Osuji, interview cited; also Engr. Yahaya Dutse, b. 1967, interview, Port Harcourt, May 2009.

619 Sheikh Ekpe, Sheikh Idoko, Sheikh Aja, and Mallam Ekeji, interviews cited. Also, Sheikh Abugu, c. 1959, (“born into Islam”), interview, Amufie, May 2003. In an interview, Abubakar Shuaib, who also studied in Saudi Arabia, explained that the Saudi government controlled what scholarship-holders study. He reports: “In Saudi, the government does not allow scholarship-holders to study anything except religion. There are many departments and fields under it. Because they pay them to study, they control what they study. The government regards those they give scholarships to as missionaries. After training them on a four-year course on Islamic jurisprudence, shar’ia, etc., they send them back to their countries as missionaries or they retain them in Saudi for international missionary work.”(Abubakar Shuaib, b. 1988, interview, Nsukka, April 2010.) 620 Saudi Arabia Information Resource website, http://www.saudinf.com/main/k312.htm 208

for Igbo converts to Islam, has effectively promoted Islam in Igboland over the last three decades. Igbo Muslim missionaries, trained in Saudi Arabia in particular also in other Islamic countries, have gradually taken over religious responsibility for the Igbo Muslim community from imams of Egyptian and Pakistani nationality and their counterparts from Northern Nigeria, who together constituted the foundational Islamic clerical community in Igboland before 1990. Although many imams in Igboland are still non-Igbo, an appreciable number of Igbo imams have emerged since the mid-1980s. The association of Igbo Muslims, and indeed Nigerian Muslims, with Rabita presupposes their exposure through Rabita influence to Wahhabiyyah views, 621 which has been regarded internationally as a radical form of Islam. Wahhabiyyah was variously accused of terrorist activities in different parts of the world. The MWL and the International Islamic Relief Organization in particular were both mentioned in connection with financing terrorism, and this, perhaps, might have fuelled concerns on the likely outcomes of Igbo conversions to Islam, such as the possibility of the development of Islamic fundamentalism in Igboland in such forms as the emergence of internal strictures like sharia law in Igbo states. These concerns are quite beyond the scope of this study, given the recent emergence of Islamic worship in Igboland and the preoccupation of Igbo Muslims, in the last three decades, with constructing an identity for themselves. However, what clearly emerged during this investigation was the un622 popularity of sharia law with a great number of Igbo Muslims. The nonMuslim majority in Igboland have been against any form of religious assertiveness in the Igbo homeland by Muslims, Igbo or non-Igbo, as one way of fore621 See Ousmane Kane, Muslim Modernity in Post colonial Nigeria: A Study of the Society for the Removal of Innovation and Reinstatement of Tradition (Leiden, 2003); P. Bascio, Defeating Islamic Terrorism: The Wahhabi Factor (Boston, 2007), 55; D. Gold, Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports a New Global Terrorism (Washington DC, 2003), 75; and, P. Lilley, Dirty Dealing: The Untold Truth about Global Money Laundering, International Crime and Terrorism (London, 2003), 137. Other relevant publications include: Islamic Supreme Council of America, “An open letter to concerned Americans,” FrontPageMagazine.com, 11 July 2002; “The Muslim World League: Agent of Wahhabi propagation in Europe,” TerrorismMonitor, 9 (2005); “Islamic extremism on the rise in Nigeria,” TerrorismMonitor, 20 (2005). 622 The following interviews revealed just a few of those who are unenthusiastic about the implementation of sharia law in Igboland: Ismaila Ngwu, b. 1971, (converted to Islam in 1985 following a vision in which a man in turban appeared to him), a radio mechanic, interview, Amaoda, September 2003; Miss Sefiyat Abdullahi, b. 1977, assistant director of an Islamic nursery school, interview, Nsukka, September 2003; Mr. Inusa, interview, Alor Agu, October 2003; and, Alhaji Sani Ibrahim, interview cited. 209

stalling the imposition of any strong Islamic influence on the homeland. Muslim converts, therefore, are in many communities excluded from local politics and disqualified from holding chieftaincy titles. Awudu Munagoro says: It is assumed that I am a member of the Nnewi Community Union because every adult male indigene must belong to it. In the real sense I am not a member because they will never allow me to speak during meetings and if they give me a chance to speak, my words will not be accepted. They regard me as an Hausa man because of my religion yet I know that in the Nnewi Community Union, everybody is not Christian. Some belong to the Igbo religion. They will allow them to 623 speak and their words will be accepted. Jamir Abdukareem, who became a Muslim in Western Nigeria before the age of sixteen and who displays Yoruba Muslim cultural influence, stated: “We do not keep our heads high like those in western Nigeria. We try to keep our heads 624 low and avoid whatever might generate conflict.” Indeed, Igbo and foreign Muslim missionaries in Igboland regard the Igbo environment as hostile to Islam and the people themselves resistant to its ideology. This unresponsiveness appears to affect Igbo Muslims, if we accept the view expressed here: One notices a loss of courage in this society, manifested most strongly in the failure of Igbo Muslims to individually and collectively face up to the challenge of being Muslim which otherwise consists in absolute and unconditional loyalty and submission to Allah, obedience to and execution of his law, the recognition of the supremacy of the Qur’an and Sunnah, the propagation of his message and opposition to any doctrine, philosophy or system that contradicts it, and being ready for the defense of Islam. Today, Muslims no longer talk of themselves as Muslims for fear that unbelievers might be angry with them. They prefer to be identified with the democrats, mixed economists, socialists, Marxists, humanists, and so on, all in the attempt to obscure their Muslim identity. This is the limit of cowardice: when one can no 625 longer say ‘I am’! Sheikh Idris Al Hassan, the Ghanaian Muslim missionary in Igboland, ex623 Audu Munagoro, b. 1946, interview, Nnewi, March 2006. 624 Alfa Jamir Abdukareem, b. 1970, (converted to Islam in 1986), interview, Aba, September 2003.

625 Sheikh Idoko, interview cited. 210

pressed optimism for future success in Muslim missionary endeavors in Igboland. He was one of those who identified financial constraints as an important deterrent to launching a strategic and successful missionary campaign in Igboland. In the meantime, he gave the following assessment of the Igbo after twenty three years (1979–2003) of missionary work among them: I have not seen the Igbo hostile, but to the religion. What I can tell you is that they are ignorant of Islam and, naturally, whatever one is ignorant of he fears it or hates it… If you think that the Igbo would want to come to Islam en masse, it is not going to be by mere preaching and preaching alone. Not preaching in this limited form we are doing… You know your people… If a man does not believe, no 626 matter what you do, he sticks to what he does… Another factor affecting Igbo responsiveness to Islam is the confusion from recent incidents of religious conflicts in the country. With the introduction of sharia law in Northern Nigeria from 2000 and efforts to implement same, attacks were launched on non-Muslims residing in the sharia states. The outcome in Igboland was the intensification of the connection drawn between Islam and violence. The Enugu State Muslim Public Relations officer articulated the Igbo stand on these incidents as follows: The Igbo believe that if one joins Islam, he would be killed. If he is not killed, he would be made a killer. The Igbo man does not want to be a 627 killer and he does not want to be killed.

Responses to conversions to Islam Humphrey Fisher wrote that conversion “was sometimes, perhaps often, a diffi628 cult step, likely to arouse scorn in traditional society”. He offered the example of the Galla, who ridiculed Muslims as “women water-carriers, back-rinsers, crying to prayer like monkeys”, and the Bambara, who likened “the Muslim at prayer to a donkey grazing”. Igbo Muslims have found themselves in same situation. Reactions to conversions to Islam in Igboland have, in general, rarely been pleasant, attracting much ridicule. The common tendency leans towards disappointment with, and denunciation of, the convert. If Igbo society were di626 Sheikh Al Hassan, interview cited. 627 Alhaji Mutui Osuji, interview cited. 628 Fisher, “Conversion reconsidered,” 32. 211

vided roughly into two, at one end (and in the majority), would be found those who are negative about Islam, while, at the other end, would stand those who appear not too upset by Islam and who rather admire the religion and the com629 mitment of its members. This second category includes within its ranks individuals who have had relatively close interaction with Muslims, either in 630 Northern or Western Nigeria or elsewhere. They are rarely incensed over Igbo conversions to Islam. For that majority that treats conversion to Islam with displeasure, their concerns broadly rest on these points: The first is the fear, which is still current, that conversion would mark the gradual fulfillment of the nineteenth century Fulani jihad strategy of thrusting south until non-Islamic communities located well beyond the southern limits of the Sokoto Caliphate were brought within the sphere of Islam. Johnson described this strategy as an attempt “to dip the 631 Qur’an into the sea”, a phrase that has stuck since colonial times. A second reason derives from the lingering bitterness over the atrocities meted out to the 632 Igbo during the Nigeria–Biafra war by Hausa soldiers of the Nigerian army. 629 Those who expressed clear admiration for Islam in Igboland were few, but positive opinions included: interview with Mr. Vincent Okezie, c. 1936, a retired teacher, Ezinifite, February 2006; and, Mr. J. Igwe, b. 1969, a banker, Port Harcourt, October 2003. Mr. Igwe observed: “Islam is good but the only area I do not agree with them is that they like fighting and shedding blood unnecessarily and believe it is not evil.” 630 One such person is Nathan. Okeke, known among his friends as “Alhaji”, who lived for many years in Northern Nigeria and had Muslims among his business associates. When the current principal of the Islamic primary school, Enugu, contemplated taking up employment with the Islamic Centre some years back, it was Mr. Okeke that she requested to speak with and convince her husband that taking up appointment with an Islamic establishment was not synonymous with conversion to Islam and therefore not a threat to her faith. Mrs. C. Okolie, b. 1963, interview, Enugu, May 2003. 631 Samuel Johnson, The History of the Yorubas from the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the British Protectorate. (London: 1921), 288 632 For a detailed account of Igbo and Hausa relations in Northern Nigeria from 1966 onwards, see Douglas Anthony, Poison and Medicine: Ethnicity, Power, and Violence in a Nigerian City, 1966 to 1986 (Oxford: James Currey, 2002). For discussions on military brutality on the Igbo during the Nigeria-Biafra war see John Jorre, The Nigerian Civil War (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1972); and, Dan Jacobs, The Brutality of Nations (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987). Muslims of Northern Nigeria origin and also Igbo Muslims now try to refute claims of Hausa brutality to the Igbo during the war by insisting that Christian and other non-Muslim soldiers also fought in the different units of the Nigerian Army that overran Biafra. They argue that these other soldiers were responsible for the supposed atrocities against the Igbo and not the Hausa. They add, also, that the Head of State who prosecuted the war against Biafra was a Christian. Published accounts on the Nigeria-Biafra war by foreign and Nigerian authors show that there is indeed some truth in Igbo claims of Hausa brutality during the civil war. Ho212

The third is the resentment arising from the possibility of Igboland losing its 633 long held stand as a non-Muslim territory and its image as a land of “almost 634 total Christianity”, as Ottenberg describes it. The fourth point is the perceived marriage of convenience between Islam and violence. This association was worsened by upsurge of militant Islam globally and in the country since 635 the 1970s. The recent resurgence of Muslim militancy in Nigeria from 2000 manifested in the accelerated incidents of Muslim attacks on Christians, which eventually provoked counter-attacks from Christians. This supposed Muslim flair for violence was contrasted with Igbo aversion to the shedding of blood. Many Igbo are alarmed that conversion would predispose their members in Is636 lam to violence thereby ending the Igbo historical aversion to bloodshed. Lastly, there is a worry that religious balkanization, a possible consequence of conversions to Islam, endangers Igbo interests and survival and might bring about the eclipse of Igbo culture by the imposition of Hausa norms. Added to this are the hard feelings for certain Hausa Muslim values, such as a traditional system perceived by many Igbo as unsupportive of economic and social innovation encouraging self affirmation, individualization, and democratic decision making, all of which are regarded as key features of Igbo ethnic identity. An Igbo position on the first three points was articulated in 1969, during the Nigeria-Biafra war, by Lieutenant Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, Biafra’s military leader, who described the conflict between Nigeria and Biafra as a war against Muslim expansionism in Nigeria. Much of the religious aggression and official proselytization of the late Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, a descendant of Uthman dan Fodio, and the first Nigerian political head of the Northern Region until January 1966, was construed by the Igbo to be geared towards accomplishing the nineteenth-century jihad strategy of conquering nonMuslim lands south of the Sokoto Caliphate. The Igbo in particular, but also other non-Muslim groups of North Central Nigeria, commonly held that the

633 634 635 636

wever, we must not lose sight of the fact that wars are not civilized events and there is no gentleman in a battlefield. Dmitri van den Bersselaar, In Search of Igbo Identity: Language, Culture and politics in Nigeria, 1900-1966 (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 1998). Simon Ottenberg, “Reflections on Igbo Culture and Society,” unpublished manuscript (2006), 11. Kane, Muslim Modernity, 92-100. Chief F. A. Ibe, b. 1941, interview, Mbano, October 2003; Chief P. E. Nwainyinya, b. 1951, interview, Abakaliki, October 2003; and, Mr. J. C. Igwe, b. 1969, interview, Port Harcourt, October 2003. 213

637

Sardauna was determined to ensure the conquest of Nigeria under Islam. The result was Colonel Ojukwu’s accusation that the Sardauna tried “by political and economic blackmail and terrorism, to convert Biafrans settled in northern Nigeria to Islam,” in the hope “that these Biafrans of dispersion would then carry Islam to Biafra, and by so doing give the religion political control in the 638 area.” To forestall the accomplishment of this plan in Igboland, state-sponsored persecutions were unleashed against Igbo Muslims during the war. The traumatized group, found mostly in Nsukka and Abakaliki Divisions, were forced to flee Igboland until these areas were brought under the control of the 639 Nigerian army and the safety of Igbo Muslims was guaranteed. Thirty-nine years after the war, Alhaji Omar Farouk considers it a success for Islam that there are now indigenous Muslims in Southeast Nigeria, including Rivers State, the southernmost part of Nigeria. He regards this development as the fulfilment of the jihad prophecy that the Qur’an would be dipped into the sea and, for 640 him, the sea referred to is the Atlantic Ocean. In addition, there is a widespread sense that Igbo culture is not aggressiveness. There are many popular remarks that the Igbo tradition and worldview abhor the shedding of blood with which Hausa Muslims have been associated. Persons who object to Igbo conversions to Islam on the grounds of assimilation of Hausa Islamic culture are concerned that the sacredness of blood would be compromised by Igbo converts. They enjoy the support of those who do not

637 The Sardauna was not the first to propose an Islamic conquest of Nigeria. During a debate over Nigerian independence in the Legislative Council in 194, Tafawa Balewa remarked: “We [the north] shall demand our rights when the time is ripe. We do not want Independence and we shall fight for it if necessary, but I should like to make it clear to you that if the British quitted Nigeria now at this stage the Northern People would continue their uninterrupted conquest to the sea.” In 1959, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello described Nigeria (including Western Nigeria) as his grandfather’s old empire over which he would appoint his lieutenants to rule. (Obarogie Ohonbamu, The Psychology of the Nigerian Revolution (Ilfracombe: Arthur H. Stockwell, 1969), 125-26.) 638 The Ahiara Declaration: The Principles of the Biafran Revolution (Umuahia, 1969). 639 Interviews with Dauda Ojobe, Mallam Omeje, Imam Ibrahim Eze, Sheikh Aja, and Alhaji Mutui Osuji. Ojobe, Eze, and Mutui all fought on the Biafran side. Eze was the only known Muslim Igbo who fought for Biafra, although he relinquished his Muslim names for that purpose. Ojobe was involved in the state persecution of Muslim indigenes. Mallam Omeje was severally arrested by the Biafran authorities and, with many other Muslims of Nsukka Division, came under pressure to recant. 640 Alhaji Omar Farouk, b. 1949, (converted to Islam in 1989), Secretary General of Rivers State Islamic Council, interview, Port Harcourt, May 2009. 214

641

wish to relinguish their members to another ethnic group. Adamu and Anthony both outline the high assimilation tendencies of the Hausa ethnic group. Anthony, in particular, reports on three Igbo men who, after conversion to Is642 lam, acquired Hausa ethnic identities, relinquishing their Igbo identities. The fear of such loss for Igbo communities is a major factor in their to Igbo conversions to Islam. Remarks suggestive of this loss are commonly heard and are responsible for converts being addressed as onye Hausa (“Hausa man”) or nwanyi Hausa (“Hausa woman”), implying that the convert is no longer an Igbo but a Hausa. It was in an attempt to forestall these losses (as some construed them) that a community in Igboeze excommunicated a convert in the anticipation that he would repudiate his faith. The importance of such measures lies in the social and economic benefits of belonging to a specific ethnic group. In mounting such pressure, community leaders understood the unlikelihood that all converts would easily and simultaneously accept rejection from their families and from the entire community. One excommunicated convert worked through his extended family to win his acceptance back into his community but only succeeded after he agreed to the conditions set by the community leaders, which were communicated by their chief: that he would retain his Igbo names and every marker of his Igbo identity and ensure that his children did same; that he would take part in shared communal activities as an indication of his involvement in the community; and, lastly, that he would make certain that his 643 children mixed freely with other children of their age in the community. The Igbo Muslim community is aware of the backlash caused by the series of riots on non-Muslims in Northern Nigeria between 2000 and 2006, which in turn provoked retaliatory killings of Hausa settlers in Igboland by the Igbo. Mallam Ibrahim Eze, a chief imam, lamented the disrepute Islam and Muslims were brought to by the riots and the hostility from Igbo non-Muslims and remarked, “Now Igbo parents regard their sons who want to join Islam as going to participate in the many crises for which Hausa Muslims were famous and so 644 they try to prevent them from shedding blood.” A strongly worded denunciation of Islam by a young Igbo man, which touched on some of the factors causing resentment to conversions to Islam in Igboland, demonstrates the outlook of this class to Islam and its progress in Igboland: 641 Mahdi Adamu, The Hausa Factor in West African History (Zaria: Ahmadu Bello University Press, 1978).

642 Anthony, “Islam does not belong to them,” 426-432. 643 S. Nwabueze, b. 1955, interview, Ukpani, February 2006. 644 Mallam Ibrahim Eze, interview cited. 215

It was for the lust of knowing what should not be known that man made this mucky journey into religion…. Taking into consideration the recent events in Nigeria … one could see the irony of Islam. Muslims preach peace and propagate war, terrorism, destruction, confusion, and riot. They preach unity and love but regard non-Muslims as infidels whose necks should be broken. They preach intolerance where they are in the majority but tolerance where they are in the minority… About seventy five per cent of riots in Nigeria are caused 645 by Muslims. Islamic religion promotes anarchy. The thrust of the above remark has been voiced by other observers with respect to Nigeria, and other parts of Africa. Clark and Linden record in 1984 Muslims’ wide-range interactions with African traditional belief systems and practices: an interaction that heightened in areas, and during times when, Muslims constituted a minority. At such times, their numerical disadvantage propelled them toward the view that different forms of primordial religion could exist side-by646 side them in the same society. That tendency was the prototype of the “tolerance-preaching” expressed by the interviewee above. Another study shows same pattern. Ali Bhati Juma writes: Muslims in Sub-Saharan Africa, like most Muslims around the world, exhibit an “us versus them” mentality. When Muslims form a minority, they have tended to coexist peacefully with other religions, but where their populations are substantial (as in Nigeria), they tend to assert themselves. Whatever ethnic and other divisions are at stake, the “us versus them” sentiment has played a large role in fermenting 647 religious conflict in Nigeria. It is not unusual to find a good number of Igbo to whom conversion to Islam was tantamount to betrayal of, and disloyalty to, their ethnic group. Family members, colleagues, acquaintances, and friends reportedly use subtle and notso-subtle means to express displeasure to conversions to Islam. Deriving from the basic premises outlined, Igbo aversion to Islam that became public during the Nigeria-Biafra war continued afterwards, frequently coming to the fore each time a member of the group became Muslim. Children of Muslim converts 645 Mr. C. Ogbodo, b. 1971, interview, Nkanu, September 2003. 646 P. B. Clarke and Ian Linden, Islam in Modern Nigeria (Mainz: Grunewald, 1984). 647 Ali Bhati Juma, “African Muslims in the Islamic World,” The Journal of Turkish Weekly, December 2006. http://www.isro.org.uk 216

were not spared public antagonism for the conversion of their parents and, of course, their own. The principal of the Islamic primary school at Enugu concluded that children suffered more public antagonism than their parents, supporting this by saying: “When they appear at bus stops other commuters ad648 dress them rudely, saying ‘Hausa children, go away!’ In 2003, the city of Enugu had a projected Igbo Muslim population of roughly less than a thousand, scattered amid a population of about a million inhabitants. There, as in other parts of Igboland, Muslim converts, who are in the minority, were easily identified, making them easy targets of public disapproval. Public antagonism may heighten with each convert gained by Islam, even when the immediate family of the convert was not bothered by the conversion. Ironically, in the interesting case of the conversion of a lawyer about a decade ago, his Muslim relatives were displeased with the conversion on the grounds that it was a career-motivated act that was not borne out of sincere religious quest. In this instance, the bone of contention among his Muslim relatives 649 centered on the genuineness of the conversion. Thus, the convert found himself in a strait betwixt his Muslim relations, mostly members of his extended family, and his non-Muslim family members. Both sides had issues with his conversion. Igbo converts to Islam tell of unpleasant episodes that attended their conversion experience. Ottenberg documented the reaction in the village of Enohia in Afikpo Division over the conversion to Islam in 1958 of Chief Isu Egwu: He was then fined by the senior Afikpo age grades, and was more or less ostracized by other leaders, although he was an influential man and was associated with the progressive and schooled persons in the village-group. After some time he withdrew from Islam and paid his £5 fine, but he never regained the stature in Afikpo he had held prior 650 to his conversion, and was much ridiculed for his action. One other Enohia convert, a well-known wrestler, lost his wives after becoming Muslim: the women simply refused to remain with him. The Igbo Assistant District officer at Afikpo Division, from Orlu in central Igboland, “was surprised that any Igbo would wish to convert to Islam, and he did not feel that 648 Mrs. C. Okolie, interview cited. 649 Mrs. Asmau Shittu, b. 1969, (“born into Islam”), interview, Nsukka, May 2003; and, Adam Usman, interview cited.

650 Simon Ottenberg, “A Moslem Igbo Village,” Cahiers D’Etudes Africaines, Vol. XI (42) 1971, 240-245. 217

those who wanted to really understood the implications of what they were do651 ing.” Below is Alhaji Mutui’s story of his conversion experience in 1982: When one embraces Islam he faces persecution from relatives. In my own case my wife was against my conversion because we were very good Christians. She did not see why we should abandon Christianity. Later she converted but after a while she saw that she could not do those things she did as a Christian… The worst were the daily prayers and all the hard dos and don’ts. Living a Muslim life is full of dos and don’ts and commitment to the practice of Islam. She couldn’t cope. She left the family in 1986 and went back to Christianity… My other relations also kicked against my conversion. Up till now they are not comfortable with my being a Muslim. But, it is my faith; it belongs to me, I cannot compromise it for anything! When in the course of prayer we say “Allahu Akbar,” meaning “God is great,” 652 people make mockery of us. They call us ndi alakuba. Two more uncorroborated stories were given as indications of public opposition to conversions. In the first, the issue at stake was the broadcasting in the 1980s of a Muslim religious programme by the National Television Authority in Enugu, the major Igbo city: Christians had Christian-half-hour so I thought of hosting a similar programme for Islam. My application to the Nigerian Television Authority for permission was denied. I went to the head office in Lagos and applied. After a series of petitions, I was directed to the person in charge of the religious unit. He was a Reverend Father who knew me as a Christian… He was annoyed with me… He felt I was going to preach against Christianity and refused my request to host the programme. I continued mounting pressure until he asked me to put in an application and I did…They prepared a set of guidelines that I should not mention Jesus Christ and that I should not abuse other religions. I 651 Ibid. 652 Alhaji Mutui Osuji, b. 1936, (converted to Islam in 1982), public relations officer of the Islamic Center in Enugu, interview, May 2003. Alhaji’s story appears well known to persons close to him. I heard aspects of it in separate interviews with his son and two of his acquaintances. Alakuba is an onomatopoeic term. Literally, it means “to be beaten up by the ground.” It is, however, used in reference to the Muslim prayer pattern of touching their foreheads on the floor, which the Igbo ridicule, describing them as people who “hit the head on the ground.” 218

went by that agreement and they aired the programme… The programme ran from 1983 until 2000. Sometimes, mid-way though the recording, it would be stopped in anger to a comment made about Jesus Christ and I would be told to present my religion and not compare Christianity with Islam…Educated Muslims were shy to appear on the screen in that programme. Those who did and went back to their of653 fices were ridiculed by their colleagues… Meanwhile, Harun Eze, a twenty-seven year old undergraduate from Enugu Ezike, narrated this story: Contrary to what people say, Islam is a religion of peace… But with respect to my community, I would say that Islam has had a divisive impact… The constitution of the country accords the right of freedom of religion to you and me but in my community Muslims are marginalized. People treat us like outcasts. They despise us and deprive us of what is rightfully ours. For instance, the University of Nigeria is one of the best universities … but I was denied admission there even when the University is located at my backyard and this was because I am a Muslim. Islam also created a huge barrier in my relationship with 654 people. The extent to which Harun’s claim was true is unknown. There have been a growing number of Muslim students in the University of Nigeria since its inception in 1960. In recognition of its Muslim population, the University has a mosque within its premises, which serves its Muslim members as well as other Muslims from the surrounding villages, and also a resident chief imam. An Igbo Muslim student, Okpani Oko from Enohia, participated actively in this study as a research assistant. It is questionable that admission into the University was denied a qualified candidate on the grounds of religious affiliation, since the same University admits Muslim students of all ethnic backgrounds. One quality of conversion is that it brings about realignment in religious belief and daily customs, and produces other changes. It necessitates a convert leaving one religious camp for another and giving up one set of values for another. The group losing naturally fights to win back what they are about to lose 653 Alhaji Mutui Osuji, interview cited. 654 Harun Eze, b. 1979, (“born into Islam”), president of the Muslim Students Society, University of Abuja, interview, Abuja, September 2005. At the time of interview, Mr. Harun Eze was a third-year law student at the University of Abuja. 219

as, simultaneously, the group gaining does all it can to consolidate its gain. The resulting scenario presents little opportunity for a win-win situation since one party wins and another looses; the reactions of the losing party could be imagined. Igbo converts to Islam find themselves in the centre of the pull between their new religious family and their discarded religious family. There is no end, except the threat of death, to the efforts of friends and relatives eager to dissuade the convert from his chosen course. Where parents seemed deeply antagonized by a child’s conversion, the often-reported action was to disown—albeit temporarily—the convert. In Anambra State in 2006, a forty-three years old woman reported this treatment from her father following her marriage to a 655 Muslim, which her family understood as a prelude to her conversion to Islam. These attempts are not always indications of hatred for the convert but the consequence of personal and group prejudice against Islam and sometimes against the Hausa, who typify Islam and its worldview to the Igbo. Friends and relations engaged in the war of reclamation of Igbo converts more often than not act on the assumption that their actions are necessary to save a precious one from potential error and deviation from the truth. Few consider the convert’s interests and choices, thus negating their right to self-determination in the allimportant matter of faith. Among Igbo converts to Islam are persons who clearly comprehend the basis for local resentment towards Islam and who acknowledged how difficult it is for most Igbo to accommodate the regulations of the religion to the point of converting. Dauda Ojobe, whose conversion occurred in 1971 observed: Muslim ritual washing that required converts to carry kettles all the time hindered people from becoming Muslim. Hardly would you meet a farmer, on his return from the farm, who would agree to do ablution —wash here and there—before eating; or who would move about with 656 kettle … even after urination when he was mandated to wash. When matters of religious regulations are combined with memories of the Nigeria-Biafra war, and the consequent hausanization of Igbo converts to Islam, reactions appear intense. Even Alhaji Mutui of Owerri told of his inability, 655 This interviewee, born in 1963, spoke on the condition of anonymity. The interview was held in Lagos in February 2006. The interviewee, who described herself as “both a Christian and a Muslim,” narrated the circumstances of her conversion. She converted to Islam in 1997 when she married her second husband, a Hausa Muslim. An underlying reason for the marriage was her need to gain employment with the Nigerian Customs and she was able to do so through the influence of her Hausa Muslim husband. 656 Dauda Ojobe, interview cited. 220

soon after his conversion in 1982, to shake off his bitterness for the Hausa because of his civil war experience. He recalled: I was a major in the Biafran army. During the campaign to liberate Owerri I fell into a trap and was captured by Nigerian soldiers. I was held at Owerri until the end of the war… When I embraced Islam I could not visit army barracks. I developed a phobia for military personnel. Twice I was condemned to death during the war; twice I dug 657 my grave to be buried alive… So, why should I love them? He overcame his fear, however, and became one of the early converts to Islam in Enugu after the civil war. Mutui’s case shows that memories dim with time, even though they hardly die. Generally, the Igbo exemplify this phenomenon clearly. Thirty-nine years after the Nigeria–Biafra war, many survivors (with different degrees of vividness of the war) continue to share their experiences and this has not aided Islam in Igboland. The complicity in war crimes of Muslims of different ethnic groups deployed to Southeast Nigeria to crush the Biafra rebellion was one potent factor militating against conversions to Islam in Igboland. It was not helped by the launching of various websites recycling civil war stories of victimization, torture, and genocide against the Igbo by the armed forces of the Federal Government of Nigeria, members of which were 658 drawn largely from Northern Nigeria. Alhaji Sani Ibrahim described Muslim and non-Muslim relationships in his town as follows: “Because of the Nigeria– Biafra war, Muslims and non-Muslims in this town have been cat and mouse 659 ever since.” Instances of conversion-related troubles in Igboland between 1970 and 1990 not only occurred in connection with conversions from Christianity and Igbo religion to Islam but also the other way round. Converts from Islam to Christianity narrated similar harassments and, in some cases, more serious outcomes, being threatened with death in addition to other punishments in accord with the Muslim concept of Murtadd, which postulates that an apostate of Islam is 660 qualified for death. Hawakwunu described her marriage to an Igbo Christian in 1963 as “disobedience marriage,” on account of which she was disowned by 657 Alhaji Mutui Osuji, interview cited. 658 See, for example, http://www.ekwenche.org and http://www.emeagwali.com (assessed 18 November 2009)

659 Alhaji Sani Ibrahim, b. 1957, (converted to Islam in 1985 as prerequisite for marriage to a Muslim woman), a tailor, interview, Amaji, September 2003.

660 The Encyclopedia of Islam CD ROM Edition (Leiden, 2004). 221

661

her family. A young male Muslim convert to Christianity said of his conversion in 1990: “The reactions from my relatives and friends were harsh. I was 662 boycotted, denied, disowned, and despised.” Quite a number of converts felt intense pressure from those around them not favorably disposed to their religious switch. Mallam Ibeh, who became a Muslim in 1996, falls within this category. He narrated how strongly tempted he was to renounce Islam: Each time I thought about how people treated me in this community, I felt like going back to the church. And each time I remembered my previous life of affluence, the friends I lost by becoming a Muslim, and many other things, I felt like renouncing my faith. The worst challenge was from my family… They want me to renounce my faith and 663 go back to the Church and to my business…

Reactions to conversions from outside Igboland There have been scepticisms from outside Igboland on the conversion of the Igbo to Islam. Muslims of other ethnic groups applaud the development and express hope that the hold of Christianity and indigenous culture on Igboland will eventually weaken in favor of Islam. The strong attachment to Christianity has considerably caused concern about the probable success of Islam in Igboland with much grumblings that Islam is not growing as expected in the seven decades (since the 1930s) that indigenous Muslims started emerging in Igbo664 land. One interviewee from Plateau State in North Central Nigeria expressed the opinion that Igbo society is resistant to change particularly religious 665 change. But it would rather seem that contestations over religion and indi661 Mrs. Hawakwunu Okoroafor, interview cited. 662 Mr. John Ade, b. 1971, interview, Ijebu Ode, October 2003. 663 Mallam Mohammed Ibeh, b. 1959, (converted to Islam in 1996), mosque keeper, interview, Nguru, Mbaise, January 2006.

664 “How I see Islam in the East,” Al-Huda Magazine, (May 2005), 12. 665 Abubakar Sadiq, b. 1967, interview, Jos, August 2003. Simon Ottenberg holds a contrary opinion about the Igbo and change. For him, the Igbo “are very willing to change, to adopt new situations, being an enterprising people”: Simon Ottenberg, “Thoughts on Islam in Southeastern Nigeria,” keynote lecture presented at the International Conference and Humboldt Kolleg on Islam in Nigeria’s Eastern Region and the Lake Chad Basin, September 2010. Ottenberg’s view on the Igbo attitude to change is fully discussed in “Ibo receptivity to change,” in William R. Bascom and Melville J. Herskovits (eds.), Continuity and Change in African Cultures (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 129-43. 222

vidual rights to choose a religion run deeper that often envisaged, deriving its strength from the need for ethnic survival, among other issues, in highly polarized nations like Nigeria. A cautious assessment shows that Tivland and Haus666 aland, for example, are in the same stricture over religion as Igboland. With respect to Hausaland opposition to religious change is consciously or unconscious aligned with the common notion of the primacy of Islam over other religions. The Igbo locates their opposition in transcendental terms as well as in socio-political factors for Igbo cosmology considers it an abomination of sorts to abandon the traditional worship, some interviewees point out. This question of religious change is as complicated in Igboland as in others places where the religion of the people form part and parcel of their tradition and in effect determines the tradition. Other scholars of religion have drawn similar conclusions for Nnorom in denouncing Islam in Igboland as a factor that would endanger Igbo survival as a people lamented the failure of Christianity to become culture in Igboland: He writes: But even by far troubling is the state of our double religious heritage: Traditional Igbo Religion (TIR – also known as Odinani) and Christianity. The former is gradually becoming extinct, while the latter is yet to be fully born. Thus we are an “usuistic people,” – confused, divided and caught between the primal and irresistible force of our ancestral faith and the young and brash attractions and promises of a novel and universal religion [Christianity]. Christianity, the overwhelmingly majority religion of Ndigbo, is yet to become Igbo culture. And until religion becomes culture, it cannot perform its social 667 and historic functions, especially in times of crisis. Another concern expressed by a non-Igbo over conversions to Islam in Igboland addressed the question of violence. Justus Jacob from Edo State origin declared: “Calls for the conversion to Islam of the Igbo to Islam should be stopped 668 so that the Igbo do not become as violent as other Muslims. Echoing same concern, an interviewee from Oyo State feared that Igbo conversion to Islam will spell trouble for Nigeria. To put it in his own words: “When the Igbo begin to join Islam Nigeria is in trouble. The Igbo are aggressive and pursue life ag666 Dean S. Gilliland, African Religion meets Islam: Religious Change in Northern Nigeria (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1986).

667 Columba Nnorom, “Islam in Igboland: Lessons in History,” paper presented at the Conference on Igbo Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, April 1-2 2003, p. 2.

668 Justus Jacob, interview, Enugu, September 2003. 223

gressively. When they adopt a cause they throw themselves completely into 669 it.” Foreign Muslim missionaries in Igboland commented on this tendency 670 and called it “the spirit of hard work and advancing a cause.” Resting on this assumption about the Igbo, one of them expressed the hope that if a considerable number of Igbo become Muslim, “they will take Islam far beyond the 671 boundaries of Nigeria.” On this confidence rests their hope, he informed me. Islam may as yet not claim huge followership in Igboland, but it is making steady progress and conversions are taking place nonetheless. The benefits of conversion were summed up by Rambo as including gaining some sense of ultimate worth, participating in a community of faith that connects one to both a rich past and an ordered and exciting present, and generating a vision of the fu672 ture that in turn mobilizes energy and inspires confidence. These qualities would certainly make conversion a continuous human experience. The possibility, therefore, of completely blocking the conversion process in Igboland appears slim in the light of the strong forces of accelerated urbanization and global intermingling, both of which would continue to foster mobility, social heterogeneity, and increased interaction between people of different religions and nationalities.

669 670 671 672 224

Dr. Oluyemi Akinloye, b. 1968, interview, Berlin, July 2008. Sheikh Idris Al Hassan, interview cited. Ibid. Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion, 2.

CHAPTER 7 MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS: THE CHALLENGES OF COEXISTENCE IN A MIXED RELIGIOUS SOCIETY

This chapter considers two important issues relevant for understanding the development of Islam in Igboland since the 1930s: the nature of social interactions (actions, encounters, relations) between Muslims—both migrants and indigenes —and non-Muslims in Igboland. The second is the changing landscape at the national level that derives from the intermingling of different groups of people defined by their religious identity. Social interaction as used in this chapter refers to the changing sequence of social actions between individuals or groups who modify their actions and reactions as a response to the actions of their interacting partner(s). In other words, they are incidents in which people attach meaning to a situation, interpret what they think others are meaning, and respond accordingly. The second part of this chapter will examine the confusion that overwhelmed Nigeria following the implementation of shari‘a law in twelve states of the federation between 1999 and 2000, and the impact of this on the growth of Islam in Igboland.

Juggling for a niche in the community One parameter for determining group integration in a mixed society is by examining the nature of the interactions of the component units in their daily encounters. Muslims and non-Muslims in Igboland like Muslims and non673 Muslims elsewhere are not monolithic communities that interact as blocs. For well over a century the primary element defining and determining the Igbo traditional (conventional) practice was the Igbo religion, itself an important part of that traditional practice. It is often represented with the word omenani. The Igbo religious worldview set the precepts for interpersonal and communal relationships in pre-colonial Igbo towns and villages. It was within this structure 674 that Christianity was introduced in Igboland in 1857. Although Christianity eventually emerged dominant in Igboland over traditionalists; Christians, non673 Benjamin Soares, “Introduction: Muslim-Christian Encounters in Africa,” in B. J. Soares (ed.), Muslim-Christian Encounters in Africa (Leiden: Brill, 2006), p. 2.

674 F. K. Ekechi, Missionary Enterprise and Rivalry in Igboland 1857-1914 (London: Frank Cass, 1971). 225

etheless, continued to borrow and retain aspects of the social and religious 675 practices of the traditionalists, with the result that the Igbo omenani alongside the bible jointly became the determinants of the worldview of Igbo Christians. The general perception of Christian-Muslim relations in Africa suggests that Christian and Muslim relations have been more harmonious in the continent than elsewhere in the world. This success story, according to Lissi Rasmussen, derives its weight from the fact that many African families are multi-religious and that Muslims and non-Muslims remain strongly committed to their ethnic 676 identities despite religious differences. Lamin Sanneh, on his part, saw this harmony, and further possibilities of it in the future, as arising from the influence of the African culture on these religious groups and on their relations. He remarks: The fact is that Christian and Muslim Africa is for the most part enfolded within the larger setting of the old Africa, with its deep-rooted hospitality, tolerance, and generosity and it would be surprising if nothing of that admirable heritage did not survive in the new reli677 gions. There is very little evidence of acceptance of the convert or his integration into the society. Rasmussen and Sanneh’s thesis is not as yet true of the Igbo experience perhaps because Islam is still in its emerging state in this part of Africa. Nevertheless Muslims in Igboland are optimistic that such a situation as described by Rasmussen will emerge by the time Islam would have gained a corresponding foothold, like Christianity, in Igboland. Al-Hassan stated it clearly: As my sister you go to church but I am a Muslim. There is no amount of pressure that will make me to plot against you. ... Secondly, if at all the Igbo will not embrace Islam en masse, they will build understand675 See, Elizabeth Isichei, “Seven Varieties of Ambiguity: Some patterns of Igbo Response to Christian Mission,” Journal of Religion in Africa 3 (1970), and, A History of Christianity in Africa: From Antiquity to the Present (Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 1995); Dmitri van den Bersselaar, In search of Igbo Identity: Language, Culture and Politics in Nigeria, 1900-1966 (Leiden: Leiden University, 1998), and Desmond Forristal, The Second Burial of Bishop Shanahan (Dublin: VERITAS Publications, 1990). 676 Lissi Rasmussen, Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa (London: British Academic Press, 1993), p. 1. 677 Lamin Sanneh, Peity and Power: Muslims and Christians in West Africa (New York: Orbis Books, 1996), pp. 23-24. 226

ing, build tolerance, and that peaceful coexistence we are talking 678 about will come. The Igbo experience from the 1980s onwards shows that there were moments of cooperation among members of these three religious communities wherever they co-existed and there were also times of dissonance. Both situations emerge in various instances of intermingling that occurred at different socio-political levels in different communities. To help with this examination, the organizational structure of the Igbo will be sketched using the works of Ekechi and 679 Harneit-Seivers. Igbo society has various hierarchical levels of social and political organization that become relevant in different circumstances from both the individual’s perspective and in terms of socio-political organization, and which can be grouped according to their functions. The diversity and terminological inconsistencies observed from one part of Igboland to the other sometimes makes classification attempts beyond the level of the compound or family (ezi or ama—the basic socio-political unit that constitutes a clearly identifiable residential unit) a little confusing for some. At the family level the oldest male exercises authority on the basis of his position as the intermediary between the family and the ancestors. Basically, several families linked by relatively close kinship relationships form a village sub-section called a “quarter” or “ward” or a “kindred.” The ward comprises of about a few hundred people, forming the 680 primary and vital group “for the ordinary affairs of everyday life.” Each of these semi-autonomous villages has its own assembly or council whose members are family heads (elders, called oha in vernacular). Every member of the ward, including women and children, can attend the ward’s meeting and air 681 their views, but generally the elders’ opinions predominated. Several wards 682 form a village (mba or obodo), which has up to a few thousand inhabitants. 683 Several villages form a village group (obodo) or town, each with a town council that is under the coordination or leadership of town elders (oha obodo). 678 Sheikh Idris Al-Hassan, Director of the Islamic Center in Enugu, interview, May 2003. 679 F. K. Ekechi, Tradition and Transformation in Eastern Nigeria: A Sociopolitical Histo-

680 681 682 683

ry of Owerri and its Hinterland, 1902-1947 (Kent: The Kent State University Press, 1989), 142-46; Axel Harneit-Sievers, Making the Igbo ‘Town’: Local Communities and the State in Southeastern Nigeria since the late 19th Century, Habilitationsschrift, Universität Hannover, 2001, 44. G. I. Jones, “Dual Organization in Ibo Social Structure,” Africa 19 (1949), 151. F. K. Ekechi, Tradition and Transformation in Eastern Nigeria, p. 143. M. Echeruo, Igbo-English Dictionary (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 269. The Igbo translation of “obodo” as town does not imply urban functionality, centrality, or infrastructure. Harneit-Sievers, Making the Igbo ‘Town’, 44. 227

The village group, which today comprises of many thousand or even ten thousands of people, is identified as the highest coherent unit of Igbo social and ter684 ritorial organization. While much of Igboland has this structure of social organization, for groups in the old Nsukka Division the highest operational level is the village (obodo). Most matters at the village and village group levels are addressed by their respective councils. General meetings of all sections of the village group were in the past infrequent and remain so presently. Despite the changes that occurred in the socio-political system of the Igbo during the colonial period, especially regarding the introduction of warrant chiefs and native courts, the organizational procedure outlined above has survived with few alterations. The obvious ones are the introduction of a “traditional” ruler at the level of the village group and chiefs at the village level. For a case study of the integration of a marginal group within the mainstream, we will use the village of Obukpa in the old Nsukka Division. Islam 685 was introduced in Obukpa sometime between the late 1930s and 1940s. Until 2003, all members of Obukpa village, irrespective of religious persuasions, intermingled in the public domain in accordance with communal arrangements deriving so much from the omenani, which were already in place. At the level of the ward, members related with each other with as little friction as possible, achieved more or less by careful avoidance of conflicts. General meetings, which were the fora for discussing communal welfare, were open to all members—Christians and traditionalists, and Muslims. The only departure was in the manner of participation. Unlike the Christians and traditionalists who participated on individual basis, Muslim participation was through a representative. Muslim members did not directly attend general community meetings. Their representative did so on their behalf and on the behalf of the migrant Muslim community in the town. The precedence was set several decades earlier, at the onset of the burgeoning migrant Muslim community, when a representative was chosen to represent the migrant community and to act as their spokesper686 son in all matters involving them and their hosts. In most cases this representative was the leader of the migrant community. The present imam at 684 G. I. Jones, “Igbo Land Tenure,” Africa 19 (1949), p. 308; Harneit-Sievers, Making the Igbo ‘Town,’ p. 44.

685 Imam Hassan Omeh Musa, b. 1937, interview, Obukpa, May 2003. 686 The same circumstance was reported by Ottenberg for Abakaliki: Ottenberg, Farmers and Townspeople in a Changing Nigeria: Abakaliki during colonial times (Ibadan: Spectrum Books, 2005). 228

Obukpa, an Igbo, explained the working of the general meeting and the participation of Obukpa Muslims: We have a representative who represents us. He is Mohammed Odo. The former representative, now late, was an indigene of Nupe. Now, 687 Mohammed Odo represents Muslims at that meeting. Further enquiry revealed the reason for casting of Obukpa Muslims within the community of migrants instead of among the hosts, to which they belonged: it was the outcome of the clientele system introduced by migrant Muslims through whom they embraced Islam: If you observe, you will see that many Obukpa Muslims embraced Islam through Ochiaba, Mallam Shehu, and Mallam Ali. It was through these people that they joined Islam. If a convert comes from the community to any of these persons and requested to be taught Islam—because Ochiaba already had a portion of land assigned him by the community to settle in—they usually invited their converts to remain and live with them so that they can better learn by observation how they practiced Islam. That was why most of those early converts moved away from where the bulk of the community had their homes and lived with migrants. Personally, I am from Enugu Ezike but I followed the influence of Mohammadu Jiga Ochiaba and came here. I lived with him and from his house attended the Qur’anic school in Ibag688 wa. Mallams Ochiaba, Shehu, and Ali, all migrants from Nupe to Obukpa, who were identified with introducing Islam in the community, had started a clientele arrangement whereby their converts lived with them. Their profiles would suggest that they were Sufi followers whose settlement served as an integrative 689 social device for converts. Encouraging their converts to live with them became the strategy for integrating the converts into the wider Muslim community to facilitate a more successful transfer of knowledge about Islam and its practices to the converts. The migrant Muslim settlement in Obukpa expanded gradually over the decades incorporating within it indigenous Muslim converts. Indigenes and mi687 Imam Hassan Omeh Musa, interview cited. 688 Ibid. 689 Sheikh Adam Idoko, b. 1958, chief imam, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, mosque, interview, Nsukka, June 2003. Rasmussen, Christian-Muslim Relations in Africa, 21. 229

grants became a group distinguishable from the rest of the community and were represented to the larger community by one of their choosing, always a migrant. The right of representation passed on to an Igbo in 1990 when the last migrant representative, Mohammed Ochiaba, died. Religion, while providing a 690 common sense of purpose for its members, can, as in this case, foster the emergence of an exclusive sub-community and one that can potentially engender division, if not properly managed. Historically, a normal tendency of migrant communities deals with living apart from the main community or forming a community within a community. This tendency was not always determined by the migrants’ ethnic unity. Economic and social considerations have, on occasion, led to such settlement patterns. Groups that have used this system have ranged from persons belonging to a specific ethnic community to a mixture of people of various ethnic backgrounds sharing something in common such as economic interest, and this allows accommodation within the mini 691 community formed. The experience of Obukpa, as a case study of the integration of a marginal group within the mainstream, is by no means uniform to all of Igboland or even northern Igboland as a whole. A neighboring village, Alor Agu, provides a different picture altogether. Here, lineage and village meetings are open to all members whose participation is determined on the basis of their association with the lineage and village and not based on their religious identity. Alor Agu Muslims have no need for a mediator or representative in their dealings with the rest of the community. All members were expected to attend communal meetings when scheduled and, until the time of this investigation, they did 692 so. In 1981, the village of Alor Agu built a town hall, the expenses of which were borne by all. The town hall has since remained an important symbol of communal unity in the town because of its strategic function of servicing the annual village gatherings at which projects and issues pertinent to the village are discussed and resolved. 690 H. O. Danmole, “Religion and Politics in Colonial Northern Nigeria: The Case of Ilorin Emirate,” The Journal of Religious History 16 (1990), 1. 691 In the same fashion as migrants from Northern Nigeria—Hausa, Nupe, and Kakanda, generations of Igbo migrants to other communities have lived apart from their hosts and the point of convergence was a unity that was based on shared social circumstances. P. Ryan, “In My End is My Beginning,” in Benjamin Soares, Muslim Christian Encounters in Africa, 197-98; Egodi Uchendu, “The growth of Anioma cities,” in Toyin Falola and S. J. Salm (eds.), Nigerian Cities (Trenton, New Jersey: Africa World Press, 2003), 153–82. 692 Alhaji Idris Okonkwo Eze, b. 1953, interview, Nsukka, May 2003. 230

The preference for urban areas in Nigeria since the 1960s has been responsible for the discrimination of the rural areas by various Nigerian govern693 ments. Consequently, as urban centers were being developed the rural areas were ignored. After the Nigeria-Biafra war, successive governments have tried to address the rural isolation through creation of more states in the expectation that the new states will trigger rural development. Doubtless, state creation, beyond the elevation of the state capital to an urban center, has not meaningfully reversed the neglect of the rural areas or the absence of infrastructures to boost the living standard and economic circumstances of Nigeria’s rural population. The outcome for the Igbo has been the recourse to, and dependence on, town associations and regular annual village and town meetings as the vehicle for rural development. It is at these meetings that members of a community propose, deliberate, and decide on projects to execute that will enhance their living conditions. Projects agreed upon are accomplished by levied contributions of all adult members. The social amenities jointly provided in Alor Agu, by members of its component religious groups, include a primary and a second694 ary school, and the village borehole. Lineage meetings in particular have served religious purposes as well. They have provided avenues for communicating individual, or group, religious beliefs to members and sometimes for influencing actions or decisions along a desired direction. They have therefore given room for the integration of divergent opinions that derive from religious commitments and convictions, but this cannot always be guaranteed. An example is this report by Ibrahim Okonkwo Eze of a 1981 Easter lineage meeting: I told my relations that I would not like my money to be used for any other purpose besides what it was meant for. I mentioned specifically using it for wine or something like that; for instance, the traditionalists borrowing it to meet their needs and refund later. My relations promised that they would use the funds for what it was intended for and nothing more. They even gave it to one of us, a Muslim, to keep convincing us that it would not be spent on anything other than the 695 building project we contributed it for. Conflicting views were on occasion expressed on issues brought before a vil693 Ousmane Kane, Muslim Modernity in Postcolonial Nigeria (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 50-51. 694 Alhaji Ibrahim Okonkwo Eze, interviewed cited. 695 Ibid. Alor Agu has a Muslim population of about a hundred persons. Although clearly outnumbered by non-Muslims, they are still a force to be reckoned with. 231

lage meeting. These should be understood as differences in sub-group presentations. In Enugu Ezike, for instance, Muslim interviewees reported that their 696 members were not allowed to hold chieftaincy positions. There was no overt legislation to that effect but a 1976 incident—involving the disqualification on the grounds of age of a Muslim candidate for the local chieftaincy position, Alhaji Saibou—was cited as evidence that such a ruling existed. Dauda Ojobe, a member of the selection committee, confirmed the committee’s concerns over the candidate’s religious identity and their conclusion that if selected “he would 697 impose a jihad and shari’a laws on the community.” The timing of the incident and the invocation of a shari’a threat for disqualifying the Muslim candidate suggest some feelings of discomfort towards Muslim members of the community by non-Muslims. For one, the incidence preceded the constitutional debate of 1977 to 1978 on the setting up of a shari‘a court of Appeal for Northern Nigeria, the ripples of which were felt all over the country. Secondly, since the shari‘a law pre-dated colonial rule in Northern Nigeria, there was no other logical reason for the disqualification except that the majority of the people were uncomfortable with Islam and its formal recognition in that community. There appears to be other reasons for the social limitations Igbo Muslims experience in their village communities. In the case of Ibagwa, Ahmed Omeje, one of the oldest indigenous Muslims, expressed the opinion that Muslims have kept away from chieftaincy and other traditional positions because of the rituals required of persons occupying such offices, which Muslims, as enjoined by the Qur’an, are not to take part in. For him, “a Muslim will not wish to assume such an office because he will not comply with the traditional require698 ments for the office.” This view is now refutable, for in the last three years there have emerged two Muslim traditional rulers in Igboland, one of whom is 699 Eze Emetuma of Akabo autonomous community in Oguta, Imo State. What is obvious is that the frequency with which Igbo Muslims occupy political positions in their communities corresponds with their numbers. Non-Muslims have an advantage by virtue of the fact that they field far more candidates than Muslims. 696 Mr. Adam Usman and Mrs. Asmau Shittu, interviews, Nsukka, May 2003. 697 Dauda Ojobe, b. 1928, interview, Amufie, May 2003. This incident occurred three years prior to Dauda’s conversion to Islam.

698 Mallam Ahmed Omeje, interview cited. 699 Engr. Yahaya Dutse, President of the Association of Muslim Professionals of Rivers State, interview, Port Harcourt, May 2009; and, His Royal Highness (Dr.) C. E. Emetuma of Akabo autonomous community, interview, April 2010. The second is the traditional ruler of Obuzo Ngwa in Abia State. 232

The existence in Oguta of a traditional ruler is unique in Igboland where it is still not common to have Muslim traditional chiefs in charge of entire communities. Notwithstanding, at the lower levels of the socio-political system Igbo Muslims occupy positions that are hereditary. Hence the oldest man in a ward in any of the villages in Nsukka Division will normally become the onyishi and will represent his unit in the village council, which is headed by a traditional ruler who coordinates all component units of that village. Such positions are only relinquished at will. In other places, namely Awgu and Mbaise, Muslims serve as lineage secretaries and retain their membership in the tradi700 tional council even after their conversion to Islam. While the Igbo in many localities admit their religious differences and engage in campaigns against each other’s religions they have at the same time built a complex network of interactions that mutually tap the benefits of each sub-religious community. Christians make use of charms produced by Muslims with no intention of becoming Muslim. Similarly, Muslims request prayers 701 from Christian confidants and friends during moments of intense challenges. Muslims and Christians alike patronize non-Muslim and Muslim ritual specialists. This interdependence is determined by the services and special abilities found in the various sub-religious groups and also on who needs what from the other. When needs require very urgent attention, religious differences are ig702 nored and help is sought from wherever it could be found. This does not cancel the fact that Christian parents shield their children from influences from Islam in the same way that Muslim parents do for their children from Christianity. Adults regard themselves as more immune than children to new ideas, in this case religious ideas. Two remarks suggestive of this are reproduced below. The first was by Sheikh Al-Hassan, the Saudi-trained missionary of Ghanaian origin, who has lived and worked in Igboland for over two decades but all this while left his family in Kaduna in Northern Nigeria: I do not know if you have observed the pollution the world is talking about. The world is talking about environmental pollution. It is restricted to the material aspect. They do not care for the spiritual aspect. Children are our responsibility. If you expose them to an environment hostile to them it will affect them negatively. It is exactly be700 Alhaji Musa Ani, b. 1955, interview, Enugu, May 2003, and Alhaji Isa Ugiri, b. 1926, imam, Aboh Mbaise, interview, January 2006. 701 Mallam Ibrahim Eze, interview cited. 702 Imam Hassan Omeh Musa, interview cited. 233

cause of this that I took pains to let my children have the better of two coins. Again, children are products of their environment. Environments have different theories and different practices and if you are in the minority it is challenging. Let them see believers who practice our convictions so that when I talk to them they will understand what I 703 am talking about. The second remark was by the Christian female principal of the Islamic school in Enugu whose children, at the time of interview, were attending a secular (government) school: My children do not school here. Religion is an issue. If they come here to study, automatically they will start from primary one to be taught about Islam and they may forget my own religion and their religious background. If I bring them here that means changing them automat704 ically to Muslims, which I am not. Another factor affecting Muslim and non-Muslim relationships is the existence of mutual suspicion over the intentions of the other sub-religious community and the potential designs of the other for dominance in Igboland. Muslims, with reason, appear more vulnerable than non-Muslims. Speaking about the establishment of the Islamic school at Enugu, the Public Relations Officer mentioned the careful processes taken because “we did not want Christians to capit705 alize on [anything] and cause small trouble for us.” Name-calling is a prominent feature of the interactions of Christians and Muslims in Igboland. Muslims do not question Christians’ numerical and influential advantage. Perhaps, it may be the reason why many Muslims accidentally or intentionally expend their energies criticizing Christianity and pointing out its flaws or supposed theological weaknesses in relation to Islam. Take for instance this explanation for a few conversions to Islam in parts of Igboland: Some are tired of monotonous clapping, dancing, and noise making. Some find out that there are too many false prophets claiming the 703 Sheikh Al-Hassan, interview cited. In a separate interview with Sheikh Adam Idoko, chief imam of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, mosque, he expressed similar views about his children. He reported withdrawing his children from their former schools and enrolling them in Federal Government Colleges and special Islamic institutions where they will be taught Islamic knowledge, which was not available in their former schools. 704 Mrs. C. Okolie, b. 1963, interview, Enugu, May 2003. 705 Alhaji Mutui Osuji, b. 1937, public relations officer, Islamic Center, Enugu, interview, May 2003. 234

ability to perform one miracle or the other but when you go behind the curtain you discover that it is framed or pre-arranged… Christians have divorced God from the scheme of things and have replaced Him 706 with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Poston cautions that attacks on Christian teachings such as the divinity, crucifixion, and the resurrection of Christ may cause some persons to forsake their beliefs, but may also serve to increase the interest of nominal Christians in the precepts of their faith and in so doing solidify their commitment to the Christi707 an religion. Poston’s argument does not apply only to Christianity, but should be extended to the Igbo religion as well. Meanwhile, Christians are also not innocent of verbal attacks on Muslims, emphasizing in particular the Muslim worship pattern of prostration and the concept of the jihad. Poston’s counsel therefore is relevant to Christians as well. The pattern of interaction that has evolved at the family level indicates clear signs of religious diversification. Some degree of accommodation of all mem708 bers is also emerging. From families that were essentially traditionalists in the early twentieth century, they progressed to a mixture of traditionalists and Christians or purely Christians without traditionalists. Since after the Nigeria– Biafra war, there have been mixtures as diverse as the religions found within the specific community. The important additional element, in most cases, has been of Muslim members. Although early converts to Islam in northern Igboland had agreed with their spiritual mentors that they will not allow mixed marriages among their members and will only permit their children to marry persons of other faiths on the condition that the non-Muslim partner under709 takes to convert to Islam, quite a number of cases can be mentioned involving Muslim men married to non-Muslim wives who never converted to Islam. However, the number of the women clearly falls behind those who converted while the preponderance of men with non-Muslim wives is found among the very well educated. Two life stories will illustrate this development. The first is the story of the barrister, Hamza Aduku, the grandson of Ibrahim

706 Sheikh Al-Hassan, interview cited. 707 Larry Poston, Islamic Da‘wah in the West: Muslim Missionary Activity and the Dynamics of Conversion to Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 185.

708 This, again, cannot always be guaranteed. In many instances there is clear denunciation of the convert. Family members begin to accommodate and tolerate a convert after several attempts to win him back have failed. 709 Mallam Ibrahim Eze (Nsukka) and Mallam Ahmed Omeje (Ibagwa), interviews cited. 235

Aduku the mediator of Islam in Amufie, Enugu Ezike. The second is about Dauda Ojobe, the local historian of Amufie. Hamza had his Quranic education and his primary education simultaneously. Secular education took place during the day, while the Quranic school was in the evenings. Born to Muslim parents, Hamza’s upbringing followed the normal pattern for Muslim children. Thus, he learned to memorize the Quran under a mallam. He never deviated, according to him, from his Muslim heritage despite being educated from the primary to the tertiary level in secular schools with strong Christian (Anglican) bias. In his narrative he explained how he was only able to make sense of Christian religious practice after taking a course on comparative religions at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. I started my primary school at St. Luke’s here in Amufie. My secondary school was at an Anglican school and my High school was at the Methodist College, Uzuakoli. For my university studies, I went to England. Naturally, inside me I am a Muslim so going to church—I never understood what happened there though... When I was in England I had to take a course at the School of Oriental Studies, which was Comparative Religions, to give me greater depth into Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and other popular religions. It helped me understand Christianity. Now that we are talking about this, from my orientation, there is no difference. But during my tender years it didn’t mean anything to me and I recall that each time what they did at St. Luke’s was that on Monday all who did not attend church were called out and given some cane lashes. I accepted that. The other issue was the introduction of singing… I never liked singing and it is not part of Muslim worship… But again there is a twist to my experience. Like I said I have read so much on religion and, for me, even though I am Muslim, I respect other people’s faith. My wife is a Christian, I married her in the church and my children are baptized. On Sundays, they 710 all go to church. Hamza Aduku is the only Muslim in his Christian-dominated family. He attends church programmes with his family on special occasions while still maintaining his Muslim identity and practicing his faith. He ended the interview with the statement that Islam is the only religion for him and that “Christians

710 Barrister Hamza Aduku, interview, Enugu Ezike, June 2003. 236

themselves are practicing Muslims who are unaware that what they are doing 711 is Islam.” Dauda Ojobe fulfilled a father’s wish and, at the same time, an Islamic in712 junction on multiple marriages. He married the full set of four women enjoined by Islam. Two are Igbo and two are non-Igbo. One of Dauda’s non-Igbo wives was a Christian who converted to Islam after their marriage. The two Igbo wives remained non-Muslim, with one belonging to the Igbo religion and the other a Christian. The Igbo religion, Christianity, and Islam have members among the thirteen adult children of Dauda. He summarized his story by saying: “I have the three religions in my home. I gained more Christians than 713 Muslims...” Using the evidence from these histories, it appears that where Muslim fathers relinquished the right of determination of the spiritual life of their families, their children naturally followed their mother’s religions. The stories are also indications of the diversification of religious membership in Igbo families. A family of five siblings comprising of three Muslims and two Christians, all married and with their own families, presents another interesting case of the nature of interactions emerging among family members belonging to different religions. The two Muslim brothers report: We relate well but we keep telling them to join us in Islam and they also keep telling us to join them in Christianity. But whenever there is a need in the family we solve it together. We make our contributions to the community as a family unit, not minding that we are Muslims and they are Christians. For instance, if there is a burial in the family, we can eat together if the food is one Islam accepts. If it is not, we will not eat with them. When it is time to pray, they pray on their own 714 and we pray on our own. Generally much of the indigenous customs in Igboland are not observed by Igbo Muslims. Nevertheless, in the old Nsukka Division in particular, Igbo Muslims do not isolate themselves from those practices that have some parallels with their religious obligations. One of such is the burial ceremony mentioned in the extract above. Aspects of the Igbo burial process are unacceptable 711 Ibid. 712 Quran 4: 3. See, “Essence of Islam: Polygamy as a Social Custom,” Daily Times, 6 March 1992, p. 7. 713 Dauda Ojobe, interview cited. 714 Alhaji Idris Okonkwo Eze and Mallam Ibrahim Eze, interviews cited. 237

to Muslims in this area. The exception is the “burial feast,” which is common in Nsukka communities whereby extended family members of the bereaved family send cooked meals to the family in mourning. Muslim husbands in Enugu Ezike and its surrounding area allow their wives to fulfil this obligation be715 cause “Islam does that, too,” remarked the imam, Mallam Ibrahim Eze. Religious-induced tensions, which may not often be very obvious to a casual onlooker, appear more noticeable in the cities than in the villages. In the latter, the various levels of communal interactions and the closeness of life provide avenues for cooperation along a wide range of issues especially after the initial shock of a member’s conversion has worn off. The family unit, and, the lineage and village meetings, allow for accommodation of the marginal member relatively more readily and quite unlike in the cities where self-absorbed lifestyles have worn thin the bonds of communal existence. Muslims’ numerical disadvantage continues to inform, as much as possible, the continuation of the strategy of close cooperation very necessary for accessing immediate assistance from their religious community. This goes together with selective withdrawal from the public space. Additionally, there is the potential for religion to engender division in a heterogeneous community by creating sub-categories that are defined on the basis of religious membership, which in some cases complicate ethnic and other categorizations.

“Multiple people, multiple ignorance:” Shari‘a implementation in Nigeria

716

An important issue that engaged Igbo Muslims and Christians in the last decade and which had national implications for Christian-Muslim relations was the shari‘a law. In 2000, the state of Zamfara became the first to adopt the shari‘a as its legal code in Northern Nigeria. Its example was emulated, shortly after, by ten other states in Northern Nigeria. This, by implication, meant the relegation to the background of the secular laws. Officials of these states and the Muslim community of Nigeria have explained that the laws are specific to Muslims but in reality there were several incidents since 2000 showing the application of the law to non-Muslims. The outcome (the shari‘a controversy from 2000 to 2004) was the basis for a number of national and regional academic and 715 Mallam Ibrahim Eze, interview cited. 716 This statement was made during an interview with Sayeed Suleiman on the shari‘a (interview at Ogrute, June 2003). 238

Fig. 21: Nigeria’s population distribution 717

non-academic conferences. It has also preoccupied the Igbo, perhaps more than it did other ethnic groups in Nigeria. The shari‘a debate had some strategic relevance to the Igbo in their capacity as Nigeria’s dominant Christian ethnic group. The Igbo had found themselves caught in the disturbances that attended the adoption of the shari‘a in Northern Nigeria and had also avenged the loss of their members in those riots. The crises over the shari‘a in Northern Nigeria caused Christian and Muslim religious communities to react to what they perceived as deviation in reli718 gious claims and practice. The main religious discourse in Igboland from 2000 717 A few of these events include: Conference on “The Shariah Debate and the Shaping of Muslim and Christian Identities in Northern Nigeria,” a joint project of the University of Jos (Nigeria) and the University of Bayreuth (Germany), Jos, 2003; Conference on “Women’s Rights and Access to Justice under the Sharia in Northern Nigeria,” Abuja, 2003; and “Religion and Violence,” a Public Lecture held in Lagos in 2004 under the auspices of the Muslim Rights Concern, and their Conference on “Peaceful Co-Existence in a Multi-Religious Nigeria,” University of Lagos, 2007. 718 Danny McCain, “Which Road Leads Beyond the Shari‘ah Controversy,” in Philip Ostien, Jamila Nasir, and Franz Kogelmann, Comparative Perspectives on Shari‘ah in Nigeria (Ibadan: Spectrum Books, 2005), 9. 239

revolved on religion as a vehicle for social peace. Igbo Muslims emphasized 719 their claim that “Islam is peace” or “Islam is the religion of peace.” While Christians maintained that the peace makers are the sons of God, the Conventionalists (traditionalists), pointing to the Igbo omenani, warned emeruna nso ala (do not ruin the peace of the land). Each religious community engaged in polemics over which group was ruining the peace of the land through consistent disturbance of public peace. To lay a clear foundation for the shari‘a dispute in Nigeria, we go back to 1960. Before Nigeria’s independence in 1960, Muslims in Northern Nigeria utilized the shari‘a for much of their litigations. At independence they were persuaded to modify the comprehensive application of the shari‘a in traditional Muslim courts. Thus, the shari‘a was to be applied to matters related to person720 al law such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance. There were provisions, since independence, for cases to be heard in line with the shari‘a at the local and regional levels. Problems began in 1967 when the regions were abolished in order to address the challenge posed by Biafra’s secession. Muslim jurists felt the need for a federal appeal court and suggested same to the constitutional drafting committee in 1977. Nothing came out of it until the Zamfara State governor presented a bill for shari‘a penal code to the state House of Assembly. The bill was signed into law in January 2000. The Zamfara example was followed by the remaining states of Northern Nigeria almost without incidence, except in Kaduna where the considerable Christian population protested the implementation, supported by migrant Christian communities. The clause on which the 12 northern states extended the jurisdiction of the shari‘a code to embrace criminal matters reads: “The Shari‘a Court of Appeal of the State shall, in addition to such other jurisdiction as may be conferred upon it by law of the State, exercise such appellate and supervisory jurisdiction in civil proceedings involving questions of Islamic per721 sonal law provisions of subsection (2) of this section.” 719 Sheikh Adam Idoko was very fervent in disseminating this opinion in Enugu State. Another Muslim who publicly projected the view is Sayeed Suleiman, a trader who identified himself as a “missionary who propagates Islam;” interview cited. 720 “Report by M. Mangin, Head of the Department of Muslim Affairs on his visit to Nigeria in March 1952,” ZARPROF C. 2425 18/6/52, National Archives, Kaduna. 721 Federal Republic of Nigeria, Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (Certain Consequential Repeals) Decree No 63 of 1999. It is uncertain how the clause became inserted in the constitution but Philip Ostein provides evidence that the clause was not put there to allow state Houses of Assembly confer any jurisdiction they pleased on state shari‘a courts of appeal: Philip Ostien, “An Opportunity Missed by Nigeria’s 240

From hindsight, some scholars have advanced that if the constitutional concession had been granted for a Federal Shari‘a Court of Appeal, the wounds of the past twenty years would have been avoided. I will also posit that the construction of the decades of military rule as one of official Islamization of Niger722 ia would have been unnecessary; for, as Philip Ostein illustrates, it was during the era of military rule that much of the lobbying by Muslims for some concessions took place. 723 These unofficial debates can be traced even to the 1980s when Nigeria progressively found itself divided along religious lines. Deep schisms began to emerge from the first shari‘a debates at the constitutional review process of 1977-78. The schism was triggered by the proposal, from delegates from Northern Nigeria, for extension of aspects of the shari‘a in their part of the country. It was soon after followed by the Maitatsine uprising, the first major religious uprising in the country, which started in Kano in 1980, with subsequent outbreaks 724 in Maiduguri in 1982, Yola in 1984, and Gombe in 1985. These initial troubles evolved from intra-faith issues among different Muslim groups. The first inter-faith crisis involving Muslims and Christians occurred in 1987 at the College of Education, Kafanchan, in southern Kaduna State, over allegations that a Muslim convert to Christianity “misquoted the Qur’an for his own evangelical 725 purposes” during a Christian outreach programme on the campus. This incident became the foundation for a series of clashes attributed to religious differences between Muslims and Christians. There is enough evidence to show that the religion-coated disturbances in Nigeria between 1982 and 2008 that pitched Muslims against Christians derive from a multiplicity of factors, sometimes unrelated to religion. They acquire a religious hue because the aggressors end up falling in either of the two religious categories and subsume the original cause(s) of conflict under this religious categorization. Meanwhile, the real causes could be historical, political, social, and economic in nature, even though

722 723 724 725

Christians,” in Benjamin Soares, (ed.), Muslim-Christian Encounters in Africa, 250. See also, B. Y. Ibrahim, “Application of the Shari’a penal law and Justice system in Northern Nigeria: Constitutional Issues and Implications” in Joy Ezeilo, Muhammad Ladan, and Abiola Afolabi-Akiyode, (eds.), Shari’a Implementation in Nigeria. Issues and Challenges on Women’s Rights and Access to Justice (Enugu: Women’s Aid Collective, 2003), 128-136. Philip Ostien, “An Opportunity Missed by Nigeria’s Christians,” 245-246. Ramussen, Christian-Muslim Relations, 98-9. Ousmane Kane, 88-9; Rasmussen, 95. Ryan, “In my end is my Beginning,” 216. This incident claimed 19 lives and was responsible for the destruction of 152 churches and 5 mosques. 241

the simplifying minds attribute the tension to religion, particularly to the di726 verse orientations of Islamic and Christian traditions in general. The Sultan of Sokoto, Mohammed Sa’ad Abubakar III, during a speech at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) in November 2007, summarized the 727 causes of Muslim-Christian conflicts in Nigeria as follows: • Growing religious activity and consciousness in Nigeria in the last two decades. • The proliferation of mosques and churches and aggressive display of religious piety, which coincided with intense political polarization in the country • Long-term impacts of intense religious debates such as the discourse over Nigeria’s membership in the OIC in the mid 1980s and the shari‘a debates of 1999 728 • Rise of poverty in the northern states of Nigeria • Youth restiveness. According to a publication by the British Press, “Whatever the historical justifications, the conflict is always and everywhere about access to scarce resources. At their root, these differences are not cultural or religious. They are eco729 nomic.” Some scholars posit that incidents of unrest in Nigeria assumed an unprecedented level with the return to civilian rule in 1999. Bamgbose Adele and Amos Oloruntele link this development to the democratic nature of the govern730 ment in power, which stands in contrast to the military regimes that spanned from December 1984 to May 1999, that exhibited very low tolerance for agitations that disturbed the public peace. Now, with a civilian democratic government in place, smouldering tensions found release in all kinds of ways. Ogoh Alubo listed eighty-five major cases of civil unrest in just five years of demo726 Ibid., 187. 727 Alhaji Mohammed Sa’ad Abubakar III’s speech on “Muslim-Christian Relations in Nigeria” at the US Institute of Peace (USIP), 13 November 2007, is stored in audio form at http://www.usip.org/events/2007/1113_nigeria.html 728 According to the Sultan, 9 of the 12 northern states have the highest incidence of poverty in the country and are the areas where crises are most prevalent. His figures for state poverty levels were as follows: Jigawa State 90%, Kebbi 89%, and Bauchi 86.3%. Yobe, and Zamfara were also mentioned as having high poverty levels. 729 “Muslims riot in northern Nigeria,” BBC NEWS, Tuesday, 11 May, 2004. 730 Bamgbose Adele and Amos Oloruntele, “Ethnic Agitation and Conflicts in Nigeria, 1999-2000,” Development Policy Management Network Bulletin XIII (3) 2001, 35-6. 242

731

cratic rule, from May 1999 until March 2003. Much can be learnt from the sociology of these conflicts. Twenty-six of the eighty-five incidents listed assumed a religious coloration simply because they involved members of the two religious communities, Muslims and Christians, yet their underlying factors were socioeconomic in origin. Of these twenty-six cases, one pitted Conventionalists against Christians in a crisis over the annual festival of sacrifices, preparatory to the new yam festival. Another involved rival Muslim groups, while the rest were between Muslims and Christians. A quarter of the incidents recorded by Alubo were recurrences of previous tensions that went unresolved, thus recurring few months or even a year later. From Alubo’s list, incidents of religious clashes in Nigeria before 2003 were, indeed, few when compared with the wide range of conflicts that are recorded in the country thereafter. The categorization of some of these conflicts as religious crisis was traced to their sensationalization as religious issues by both local and international media. Between 2000 and 2006, incidents of unrest associated with Nigeria’s major religious communities, having direct or indirect link with the shari‘a legislation in Northern Nigeria, received the greatest attention, nationally and internationally. It was over this issue that the major religious communities wrangled over who practised or did not practice its religious claims. Sayeed Suleiman, a fervent Igbo Muslim, identified the fundamental reason for the shari‘a outburst by both its protagonists, Muslims, and its antagonists, Christians, as deriving from 732 ignorance. On the part of Christians, their lack of familiarity with the functioning of the shari‘a was displayed in their unease over the shari‘a; while, on the part of Muslims, in their attacks on Christians, which in itself heightened the fears entertained by Christians over its possible application to non-Muslims. Faced with Christian antagonism, the shari‘a became the reason for Muslims’ defence of this religious heritage. Majority of Igbo Muslims extol the merits of the shari‘a in its present state of implementation, as a formula for Muslims to attain social discipline. The implementation of the shari‘a in 2001 was largely the consequence of the long history of debates and negotiations over its adoption in Northern Ni733 geria since the constitutional amendment of the 1970s. Thus, central to this outburst was Muslim displeasure over years of denial of their demand for a fed731 Ogoh Alubo, “Citizenship and Nation Making in Nigeria: New Challenges and Contestations,” Identity, Culture and Politics 5 (1&2) 2004, 135-161.

732 Sayeed Suleiman, interview cited. 733 It was also widely rumored that the shari‘a implementation was in part a protest by the Muslim North to the Presidency of a Southerner, Olusegun Obasanjo. 243

eral shari‘a Court of Appeal proposed during the 1977-8 constitutional amendment. The federal shari‘a Court of Appeal was understood by Muslims as an indication of their freedom to practice their religion within a constitutional frame, thereby upholding their identity and dignity in a secular state. Christians opposed it because they saw it as a move towards state recognition of a particular religion. What many Christians were obviously unaware of was the Muslim world-view that moral individuals are produced when social structures are in place mandating their morality. It is on this basis that the proposal for a federal Shari‘a court of Appeal was made as well as subsequent efforts to redress the lapse caused by its denial.

Issues at the core of the shari‘a dispute Two issues have emerged in the debate over shari‘a implementation in parts of Nigeria: the political nature of the introduction of the shari‘a law and the onesidedness of its application. In the first, the introduction of the law was neither through the mosques nor by Muslim religious leaders, but by politicians on the floor of state houses of assembly. This fuelled the imagination of many Christians who thought that it was meant as an instrument through which Muslims 734 will marginalize and intimidate Christians in Muslim-dominated states. Some Muslims also faulted the introduction on this ground, besides, also, identifying it as a political weapon to undermine the incumbent administration. Put directly: as an attempt to assert the north’s Islamic identity, and to provide evid735 ence of the failure of the state and the collapse of governance. Abubakar Abugu, an Igbo Muslim, is among that group of Muslims who argued that the process of implementing shari‘a law in Nigeria was not based “on the stipula736 737 tions in the Qur‘an.” Ibraheem Zakzaky, the leader of the Shi‘a or Muslim Brothers, and an avowed advocate of an Islamic Republic of Nigeria, for in734 See the following newspaper reports on the implementation of the shari‘a in Northern Nigeria: “Sharia must only be for Moslems,” and “Kaduna Crisis Shows Sharia Is Unpopular,” Weekend Vanguard, 26 February 2000, p.7; “Our Sharia Implementation will affect all parts of Kano State,” Insider Weekly, 24 November 2003, p. 27. Also, Danny McCain, “Which Road Leads beyond the Shari‘ah Controversy,” 8. 735 Muhammad S. Umar, “Islam in Nigeria’s Political Arena during Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s Presidency (1999-2007): Assessing Continuities and Changes,” Lecture at the Afrikakolloquium of the Institute für Asien-und Afrikawissenschaften, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 10 January 2007. 736 Abubakar Abugu, b. 1974, interview, Enugu Ezike, March 2003. 737 Kane, Muslim Modernity in Postcolonial Nigeria, 95-96. 244

stance, said in an interview that the conditions in Nigeria were not right for the introduction of shari’a law because shari‘a can only be implemented by an Islamic government in an Islamic state. His remarks were not well received, in738 stead Muslims in the opposition, called for public affirmation for it. Generally, various reports and individual expressions revealed a strong opposition in Northern Nigeria in particular, and among Muslims, to voice any unflattering remark about the shari‘a and its implementation. Hence, most of the responses against the shari‘a were voiced by Christians in Southern Nigeria and North Central Nigeria. The second issue for contention over the shari‘a relates to the practice of punishing the poor while the rich are immune to punishment. Observes Saudatu Mahdi, “The personal status law as currently practiced in Nigeria 739 breach both the letter and the spirit of shari‘a.” A newspaper editorial reports on the implementation: Criticisms against the Sharia system of justice have been widespread. Primarily, it is seen as a discriminatory legal system that has consistently caught in its traps only the poor and turned a blind eye to the 740 misdemeanour of the rich. 741

In addition to the above, is the application of shari‘a laws to Christians, the closure of churches, and refusal to teach Christian Religious Knowledge in pub742 lic schools. One scholar of Islam in Nigeria examined the implementation and remarked: The proponents of Sharî‘a in the north are loud in emphasising that Sharî‘a is only for Muslims. They cannot be sincere, because it is well known that the Sharî`a, which they propose, contains many provisions discriminatory against Christians. Harassment of Christians in 738 “Human Rights and Islamic Law in Northern Nigeria,” Human Rights Watch 16 (9A), September 2004.

739 Saudatu Shehu Mahdi, “Women’s Rights in Shariah: A Case for codification of Islamic Personal Law in Nigeria,” Ostein et al. eds., Comparative Perspectives, 4.

740 “Sharia with human face,” The Comet, 1 February 2002, p. 13. 741 “On ‘The first Igbo Sharia victim,” Daily Champion, 18 January 2001, p. 11. 742 See Ryan, “In my end is my Beginning;” Danny McCain, “Which Road Leads beyond the Shari‘ah Controversy,” 21; “Political Shari’a”? Human Rights and Islamic Law in Northern Nigeria,” Human Rights Watch 16 (9A); “Analysis: Nigeria's Sharia split,” BBC News, 7 January, 2003, and Joy Ezeilo, Muhammad Ladan, and Abiola Afolabi-Akiyode, (eds.), Shari’a Implementation in Nigeria. Issues and Challenges on Women’s Rights and Access to Justice (Enugu: Women’s Aid Collective, 2003). 245

the North has been on the increase. Christians are fully sensitized to the danger Sharî`a poses for them, since full Sharî‘a puts them firmly in a second-class status in society. The case of St. Dominic's Church, Dashi, outside of Gusau, is a case in point. The governor broke into the church and declared it an Islamic school. Under criticism from CAN, he denied that he did so. Then the church was quietly destroyed one night. The Zamfara government defended this action on the false 743 basis that all the people there had become Muslims. The shari‘a implementation process in Northern Nigeria came to a head in the 744 riots in Kaduna State in 2000. Underlying the opposition by Kaduna State Hausa Christians against the implementation of the shari‘a was an old land squabble that became overshadowed in the shari‘a agenda. The major victims of the Kaduna riots were Kaduna indigenous Christians and then the Igbo. (Christians of other ethnic groups, such as the Igbo and Yoruba, became embroiled by their participation in a rally at the government house to protest the proposed shari‘a law.) The Igbo lost lives but also businesses and homes. There was a massive exodus of survivors back to Igboland, with many returnees claiming that they will never go back to the places they left. But, after two years, some began to return to the north. Reports by witnesses bear evidence that Igbo migrants were equally aggressive in confronting the rioting mob in Kaduna city in particular: The mob ran round the town in vehicles cutting down people with sickles, hayaka or gariyu, as if reaping a farm…Then the Igbo from 743 Joseph Kenny, “The Spread of Islam in Nigeria: A Historical Survey,” paper given at Conference on Sharî‘a in Nigeria, Spiritan Institute of Theology, Enugu, 22-24 March 2001. The Dashi Church incident was reported in The Punch, 23 February 2001, p. 9. 744 It may be useful stating that Kaduna State had a populous non-Muslim indigene community prior to independence. Its territorial expanse before independence incorporated significant Muslim communities. It was its position as the headquarters of the Northern Region prior to Nigeria’s independence, and eventually the capital of North Central State from 1967, which attracted many Muslims from the core north—from Sokoto through Kano to Borno—most of whom settled permanently in the state upturning the ethno-religious balance and placing Muslim Hausa almost at par with the non-Muslim population. The northern section of the state is dominated by Hausa Muslims and Muslim immigrants, while the southern part is populated largely by Kaduna Christians. A considerable proportion of rural dwellers are strictly “Maguzawas”—non-Muslims and members of the indigenous religions. Kaduna Christians range from militant born-again proselytizers to less militant Christians. See, Shobana Shankar, “A Fifty-Year Muslim Conversion to Christianity,” in Benjamin Soares, (ed.), Muslim-Christian Encounters in Africa. 246

town [Ahmadu Bello way] regrouped. You know the usual war song. Wherever you are and hear “nzogbu nzogbu…” you join in … Even if you were escaping for your life and hear that song, you stand still knowing that your own team has come and you join them to fight. That was how the Igbo managed to defend themselves. If not, I doubt how many Igbo would have escaped death. Like in my own area the rampage was such that the mob had a field day. It was around I p.m. after the rally that we were able to assemble and fight back. We fought the final battle when we all met around 3 p.m. That was how we pushed them off Kano Road up to Kotangora and dominated that area. At Nassarawa Road the Igbo coming from Junction Road sur745 rounded them and they were caught in the middle. Massive looting of migrants’ businesses and homes occurred alongside the riots in Kaduna State. Eye witnesses reported that the mob that rioted in Kaduna State in 2000 was composed of non-Nigerians, particularly persons from Niger Republic, and Nigerians from other states in the north. Confessions exacted from apprehended insurgents show that rioters were remunerated, their pays ranging from 50 naira (0.34USD) to 400 naira (2.7USD). Out-of-state rioters arrived nearly three days before the rampage. However, the involvement of nonNigerians raised issues of border patrol and external interference in, and exacerbation of, Nigeria’s internal problems as indicated in this report: What I discovered about Nigeria’s problems, during the riots, is that majority of those who are Muslims here in the north are actually from Niger Republic. In every four Hausa Muslim, for instance, three are from Niger. The real Nigerian Hausa did not fight. Many Igbo, during that crisis, were saved by the genuine Nigerian Hausa… If I am asked, I would say that we have no border patrol and no immigration officers. They are not protecting our borders. Right now in Kaduna a new set of immigrants from Niger has entered the state. Gradually, before you know it… Again, the problem of the northern Muslim is that as long as an individual is united with them in religion and speak their language, he is their brother and wherever they are in the major746 ity they take as their home… 745 Rose Nduka, interview, Kaduna, January 2006. 746 Nkiru Ezenagu, interview, Kaduna, January 2006. This sounds reminiscent of the Maitatsine uprising of 1982 to 1985 in which the main actor—Alhaji Muhammad Marwa (Maitatsine)—was a Cameroonian migrant who settled in Kano in the 1940s and even247

Death of Igbo Muslims in the riots The Kaduna incident is striking for its impact on Igbo Muslim community in Kaduna state in particular. There was no discrimination in the killings. Consequently, Igbo Muslims perished alongside non-Muslim Igbo. One observer reports: The shari‘a was in two phases: I and II. During phase I Muslims did not touch Igbo Muslims. During phase II they killed Igbo Muslims. 747 Those killed were killed in their houses… Igbo Muslims in Igboland said little about the killing of Igbo Muslims in Northern Nigeria. The imam, Ibrahim Eze, and Alhaji Mutui Osuji, both felt it was a mistake. But, Dauda Ojobe denounced it as an expression of religious arrogance that shows that northern Muslims have little estimation for Muslims of other 748 ethnic groups because “their great grand fathers were not Muslims.” In addition to the killing of Igbo Muslims in Kaduna, Igbo Muslims in Igboland lost relatives in the rampage, some of whom were beaten to death by Muslim rioters. Thus, the riots negatively impacted on persons it should otherwise have protected. Non-Muslim relatives, bereaved in the riots, blamed their Muslim relatives for their misfortune. Alhaji Mutui Osuji, had his home taken over by relatives displaced in the Kaduna riots, who blamed him for their plight 749 at the hand of his fellow Muslims. The impacts of the Kaduna crisis were widespread, affecting, in this order, the state of Kaduna, inter-ethnic relations in the country, and Islamic proselytization among the Igbo. The most unfortunate legacy of the last decade is the emergence of a pattern of revenge that has colored inter-ethnic relations in Nigeria. Reports of inter-ethnic clashes in one part of the country provoked reprisals elsewhere. Christian Igbo retaliated on Hausa Muslims in Igboland because other Hausa Muslims in Kaduna, Kano, Abuja, Maiduguri, Bauchi, and Katsina tually became powerful, commanding a large following drawn from all social classes including the political class. Further, mobility along Nigeria’s northern borders has been difficult to control since colonial times. Occasionally indigenous rulers controlled population movements into their territories but this was not always easy because of affinal links of some Nigerian families with family groups in Niger and Chad: Kane, Muslim Modernity in Postcolonial Nigeria, 100-103, and Shobana Shankar, “A Fifty-Year Muslim Conversion to Christianity.” 747 Nathan Okeke, interview, Kaduna, January 2006. 748 Ibrahim Eze, Alhaji Mutui Osuji, and Dauda Ojobe, interviews cited. 749 Alhaji Mutui Osuji. 248

killed Igbo Christians. Kano Muslims killed Christians including those from Igboland in Kano because some Christian Tarok community in Plateau State killed some Hausa-Fulani in Yelwa. (See the table on pages 258-59) The indigenes of Kaduna state came out of the crisis scarred, as hurts were not assuaged. Population displacements occurred and became linked with a sharp segregation of population along religious lines. Christians and Muslims moved to areas dominated by people of their own faith, with some abandoning their original residential areas. The result was the unofficial delineation of the city’s territory and re-definition of religious spheres of influence into Kaduna north, for Muslims, and Kaduna south, for Christians. Sabon gari in the south of the city remained the stronghold of non-Muslim migrant community in the city, while Tudun Wada emerged as the stronghold of the Muslim community. Non-Muslims began to demand for the creation of a Southern Kaduna State. A resident of Kaduna stated as follows: After the Sharia-induced massacres of February and May 2000, the metropolitan city has been effectively divided into two, the River Kaduna marking the dividing line. Christians moved away from the Muslim-dominated northern flank of Tudun Wada, Angwa Sariki, Angwa Sanusi, Rigasa, Mando, Kabala and Kawo, and joined their fellows in the southern flank of Barnawa, Narayi, Sabo, Kakuri, where they now constitute the overwhelming majority, forcing some of the Muslims in the area to move-away from there. In fact some indigenes of Kaduna are actually asking that two different towns be created from the old Kaduna, one for Muslims, with a Muslim (Sharia) government, if the inhabitants so wish, and the other part for Christians, under the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. And since a large proportion of the entire state, south of the city of Kaduna is Christian, many are actually asking for a Southern Kaduna State to be 750 created out of the present one. The actual application of the shari‘a in Kaduna was momentarily stalled because of the violence, but in 2001 the state governor, Alhaji Makarfi, introduced a modified version of the laws as a compromise for the state’s large Christian population. He restricted the application to the Muslim quarters of Tudunwada, Angwa Sariki, Angwa Ndosa, among others, in order to guard against any imposition of it on Christians. This middle-of-the-road action failed to satisfy 750 Rev. Fr. George Ehusani, “Nigeria and the Challenge of Religious Fanatics.” From: http://www.fides.org/eng/vita_chiesa/nigeria_25112002.html 249

Christian and Muslim citizens of the state. However, migrant communities, especially the Igbo, welcomed it. Igbo migrants were considerably impressed that, those interviewed, said that they will support the governor in his next election bid. Having been assured, by the state governor, of their safety, Igbo residents, in 2003, determinedly declined to join in the nation-wide demonstration for the actualization of Biafra by MASSOB—Movement for the Actualization of the 751 Sovereign State of Biafra. There were divergent reactions to the governor’s handling of the shari‘a riots by residents of Kaduna State. Muslims and Christians saw it as a sell-out. Muslim indigenes denounced the governor for not implementing a proper shari‘a like other governors and nicknamed him “John Makarfi” and “Pastor Makarfi.” For Franz Kogelman, Makarfi’s handling of the sharia and subsequent ethno-religious clashes were instrumental to his re-election in 2003: Many election analysts believe that Makarfi’s skilful handling of the sharia crisis and other turbulence was decisive in persuading the nonindigenous residents of Kaduna City and the Christian majority in the south of the state to vote for him. Whereas his closest ANPP rival promised to complete the introduction of sharia in Kaduna State, “Makarfi promoted the implementation of a judicial reform which enables the Muslims, Christians and others to be tried in law courts ac752 cording to either Sharia or Customary laws.” The Kaduna crisis provided the first incidence in which the Igbo retaliated to 753 an inter-faith conflict since the first incident occurred in 1987. As news of attacks on Christians filtered through the media and from displaced persons, a vi754 gilante organization operating in Southeast Nigeria, the Bakassi Boys, un751 Nkiru Ezenagu, interview cited. 752 Franz Kogelmann, “The “Sharia Factor” in Nigeria’s 2003 Elections,” in Soares, (ed.), Muslim-Christian Encounters, 273.

753 The retaliatory killings marked a new turn in Muslim-Christian interactions in Nigeria by setting a new trend whereby any act of violence against Christians in Northern Nigeria calls forth similar act of violence in Southeast Nigeria against Muslims. In 2006, it was extensively applied in many towns in Igboland, even spreading to Asaba in Delta State, which geographically lies west of the Niger River and in Southwest Nigeria. See: “Crisis: Enugu govt donates relief materials,” Sunday Vanguard, 26 February 2006; “Riots spread to Nnewi, Makurdi, govt urges calm,” and “Protests escalate in Onitsha,” The Guardian, 23 February 2006, pp. 1-2; “Fear of Reprisal Attack Grips Asaba,” This Day, 23 February 2006, p. 3, and “Before the Next Riot,” The Guardian, 26 February 2006, p. 33. 754 The group took its name from the disputed Bakassi peninsular, which Nigeria eventual250

leashed a hunt for migrant Hausa in Abia and Imo States. In Umuahia, the capital of Abia State, an Igbo Muslim was killed in the retaliation attacks. The governments of Ebonyi, Enugu, and Rivers States, prevented the Bakassi Boys from avenging, in their states, the death of Christians killed in Northern Nigeria. Yet, a mob composed of local youths succeeded in entering the premises of the Islamic Center in Enugu, where they attempted to burn down their mosque, and were disbanded by a group of armed Muslim Youth Corpers in the premises of the Islamic Center. These were joined by a mobile police team that mounted guard in the premises for many days until the disturbances in Northern Nigeria subsided and further threats to the Center died out. Meanwhile, the riots affected attendance at the Islamic school within the Center. Student attendance dropped dramatically as parents withdrew their children. Those who continued attending classes had parents or guardians in the service of the Nigerian Police 755 Force and the Nigerian Army. These officers arranged for military personnel 756 to guard the school while in session. There was no consensual support in the country for the two widespread riots in Kaduna in 2000 (and again in 2002), nor for the retaliatory killings in Igboland. Both actions had supporters and critics. In Igboland, Muslim migrants bewailed both actions; pointing out the difficult position it put them in. They had the sympathy of mostly Igbo Muslims and some Christians. In Northern Nigeria, leaders of the Igbo communities in Kano, Katsina, and Kaduna States dialogued in 2000 after the shari‘a disturbances and put forward the view that 757 the Igbo had no business with local politics in their host communities. Reactions in Igboland to the shari‘a and the crises it generated varied widely. At one end are persons, mostly non-Muslims, who are uncompromising in their avocations against it; and, at the other, are those whose stand is more ly returned to Cameroun. It originated in Aba, Abia State, in response to wide scale anti-social behaviors especially theft, but eventually extended their operations to Anambra and Imo States. The group’s popularity first stemmed from its acclaimed nonconcern for ethnic interests. This may be considered to have changed in 2000 when it retaliated for the killing of Igbo Christians during the shari‘a riots. Source: ACCORD/ UNHCR, “Final Report of the 8th European Country of Origin Information Seminar,” Vienna, 28-29 June, 2002. 755 Information provided by the principal of the school, Mrs. C. Okolie, interviewed in May 2003. 756 Alhaji Mutui Osuji. 757 Igbo Muslims in Igboland condemned, as confrontational, Christian Igbo participation with Kaduna indigenes to protest the shari‘a in Kaduna State, and also the retaliatory killing of “helpless Hausa Muslims” in Igboland. Sheikh Adam Idoko and Alhaji Mutui Osuiji, interviews cited. 251

conciliatory. Igbo Muslims who mostly welcomed the shari‘a were scholars trained in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries. In some cases remarks on the shari‘a were stretched to derive from, or imply, a jihad but in different contexts. An example is provided by Adam Usman who praised the virtues of the shari‘a law in a lawless society, describing it as a jihad against social ills. It does not appear that the nuances of the jihad in Muslim teachings are fully grasped by majority of the non-Muslim Igbo because many imagine it as referring to a military struggle aimed at enforcing conversion on non-Muslims. Within the extended meaning of the military jihad—by which Muslims both defend their faith and avenge unacceptable treatments from persons displaying lack of support or sympathy for their religious convictions and practices—there were clear divergences of opinions voiced by Igbo Muslims: should there be or not be a jihad? Is a jihad acceptable? These considerations were debated by Igbo Muslims sometimes at formal settings at mosques and at non-formal gatherings. The discourse is complicated by other considerations, namely the rewards for killing an infidel during a jihad and for dying in the process of parti758 cipating in one. What became obvious is the influence of prior religious teachings (previous Christian or Conventional associations) on these debates. This extract from an interview with a 73-year old Muslim, which veered off to 759 the jihad, illustrates this: Q: Now that you mentioned the civil war, and even though you were not a Muslim then, was there anything you observed that happened to Muslims during the civil war? How did these affect Igbo Muslims? A: During the war the Igbo witnessed, including those from Enugu Ezike, that those who fought us were Muslims. It made many Igbo not to have interest in the Islamic religion. Another part of it was the word jihad, i.e. the holy war. So many Igbo did not like the way and manner the Hausa treated us during the war. It did not complement Islam. It did not make the Igbo understand the religion as a true religion… I cannot believe in man’s inhumanity to man. How can someone be holy when he kills his neighbors? ... I have been opposing it even in the mosque… “Thou shall not kill,” I think that is the law of God? Anytime there is a crisis Muslims kill Christians and even Igbo 758 Ibrahim Eze, interview cited. 759 Dauda Ojobe, interview cited. (I interviewed Dauda on two issues: the introduction of Islam in his village and Biafran handling of Muslims during the civil war. He veered off these topics to speak extensively on Islam and jihad.) 252

Muslims, too. This has made it difficult for Islam to grow in Igboland… The more versed in Islamic knowledge, among Igbo Muslims, elevated personal struggles for purity over military jihads. The shari‘a-induced crises have dimmed the prospects for the spread of Islam in Igboland, as will be shown later, and contributed to making the jihad concept more unpopular in Igboland. The retaliatory attacks were one aspect of the Igbo reaction to this form of social restiveness in Nigeria. A second reaction was in the form of interrogations of Igbo Muslim religious leaders, by non-Muslim Igbo, on “why Muslims love 760 to fight or wage war,” reported an imam. But, how far involved and aware are Igbo Muslims and Christians in Igboland with national issues that divide Christians and Muslims, which considerably affect Igbo Christians? Sani M. Audu, who described himself as “one of the strongest members of the Nsukka Muslim community,” reports on the cause of the 2001 Kano riot in an interview on causes of religious violence in Nigeria: Religious violence is caused by misunderstanding through preaching. Like the Kano incident where a woman dressed indecently and an Igbo man said she resembled the wife of Prophet Mohammed. A 761 Hausa man said he was wrong and from there they started to fight. Supposing this to be true, the “fight” became a city-wide affair that led to the death of hundreds of people and the destruction of much property. The origin of Audu’s account is unidentifiable, but aspects of it show that it was pieced together from a host of unrelated incidents some of which were purely fictional. On record, however, the Kano riot of 2001 degenerated from “a peaceful anti-US demonstration by local Muslims, angry at the bombing of Afghanistan.” 762 In essence Nigeria suffers not just from clashes and tensions of different origins but also from the rumor that derive from these incidents, which merely feeds the imagination, and end up worsening the original problem. The retaliatory attacks in Enugu in particular in 2001, in response to this incident, also res763 ulted from rumors.

760 Ibrahim Eze, interview cited. 761 S. M. Audu, b. 1966, tailor, interview, Nsukka, March 2003. 762 “Analysis: Behind Nigeria’s Violence,” BBC News, 5 May 2004. Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1630089.stm

763 Alhaji Mutui Osuji, interview, Enugu, May 2003. 253

Further insurrection and the progress of Islam in Igboland Among the outcomes of the killing of Igbo Muslims in 2000 was the relocation of Igbo Muslim survivors outside Kaduna State. These preferred Abuja which, on account of its being the center of the country, is closer to the south and less likely to be invaded by disgruntled mobs. But this assumption was proved wrong when in November 2002 a riot broke out again in Kaduna and spread to Abuja. In this instance, Muslims in Kaduna were protesting the hosting of the Miss World Pageant in Abuja and this publication by a female journalist: As the idea became a reality, it also aroused dissent from many groups of people. The Muslims thought it was immoral to bring ninety-two women to Nigeria and ask them to revel in vanity. What would Mohammed think? In all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from one of them. The irony is that Algeria, an Islamic 764 country, is one of the countries participating in the contest. The Miss World 2002 riots further stretched the tension from the shari‘a (I and II) episodes of 2000, and the Kano riots of October 2001 over the United States bombing of Afghanistan. The severity of the Abuja mayhem earned it the title: “Shari‘a III.” Igbo Muslim women married to Muslims of Northern Nigeria origin went into hiding, feeling as threatened as non-Muslims by this further incident. (In effect, the anticipation of protection from marriages with Muslims was not guaranteed.) Igbo Muslim men were in an ambiguous situation during this incident, too: The situation of Igbo Muslims in the north is such that when there is trouble, the Igbo will hunt their fellow Igbo who had joined Islam because they suspect that they will be telling on them to favor the Hausa. On the other hand, the Hausa will also hunt Igbo Muslims on the same suspicion that they will side other Igbo against them. So 765 whenever there is crisis Igbo Muslims are not safe. Southern Nigerians interpreted the implied messages from the Miss World pa764

Isioma Daniel, “Miss World 2002: The World at their Feet,” This Day Newspaper, 17 November 2002. For Muslims, the journalist’s remarks were out of taste. However, the mayhem and extreme loss of lives and property by which Muslims answered that publication all belong together as irresponsible social actions. Why the riots should start in Kaduna instead of Abuja was never satisfactorily explained, except to link it to the outcome of rumor: Kogelmann, “The “Sharia Factor” in Nigeria’s 2003 Elections,” 273. 765 Nathan Okeke, interview cited. 254

geant in Abuja as showing that Abuja does not belong to all Nigerians equally, and “that Abuja may not be the home of peace and security that the founders 766 thought it would be for Nigerians of all creeds and ethnic nationalities.” Widespread opinion in the country, and from all quarters, emphasized the need for decisive action against perpetrators of these atrocities. Such disciplinary action was markedly unobserved in these incidents, both at the state and national levels. The indifference of the central government to such civil disobedience baffled many Nigerians, and gave rise to eloquent condemnations. Politicians, in particular, were blamed for the silence because of their need to retain the support of their constituencies in the next national elections. The killing of Igbo Muslims in the shari‘a riots undermined the interest of potential converts to Islam in Igboland. Alhaji Mutui Osuji summarized widespread opinion toward Islam in Igboland after these occurrences: “The Igbo believes that if you join them, they would kill you. If they do not kill you they make you a killer. The Igbo man wants to remain Christian. He does not want 767 to kill and he does not want to be killed.” The chief imam in Nsukka town added regretfully that since after the riots “Igbo parents regard their sons who want to join Islam as going to participate in the many crises for which Hausa 768 Muslims were famous and so they try to prevent them from shedding blood.” From Kaduna, a former Muslim Igbo remarked: The riots over the shari‘a worked against Muslims... When the crisis deepened and the Igbo rallied together to fight back, the Hausa were forced to kill some Igbo Muslims. Seeing what happened, some others converted back to Christianity. It was the same among the Igala, some Yoruba, and others from the Benue. That was where the riots seri769 ously backfired against them.

Suggestions for lasting peace in Nigeria There were discussions since 2000 on how Christians should respond to future insurgencies and how other constituencies—Muslims, Conventionalists, and others—should act together to broker peace. Within the Christian community, majority called for a tooth-for-tooth policy. Others appealed for peace and mu766 767 768 769

Rev. Fr. George Ehusani, “Nigeria and the Challenge of Religious Fanatics.” Alhaji Mutui Osuji, interview cited. Mallam Ibrahim Eze, interview cited. Nathan Okeke, interview cited. 255

tual cooperation, with Muslims, on issues of joint interest. The tooth-for-tooth proponents, among whom are some influential religious leaders, saw it as their onus to stop the attacks since the federal government has failed via inaction. Two of them, Reverend Ndu, President of the Plateau chapter of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PAN) whose church was burnt, and Bishop David Oyedepo, of Living Faith Church a.k.a Winners’ Chapel congregation, were in favor of self-defence. The second group of Christians who campaigned for peace with Muslims included among them expatriate religious workers. The leading advocate of this group is the Reverend Danny McCain. Scholars like Patrick Ryan, once a religious worker in Yorubaland, and Philip Ostein might on the strength of their writings be categorized with this group, otherwise they have no other identifiable connection with the group. What these advocates share in common is the perception that Nigeria’s unity is paramount and advantageous to its peoples than its disunity and disintegration. Indeed Muslim-Christian conflict has been 770 an increasing worry for those concerned with Nigerian unity. In Ryan’s perspective the current tensions between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria derive much of their force from the considerable misunderstanding from their very different orientations to society and personality. Muslims seek the good society by the enactment of a legal and political system that guarantees ethical standards; while Christians seek the good society from the improvement or develop771 772 ment of the individuals who make up that society. Both positions, argues McCain, have points of convergence capable of uniting the two religious communities: Even from a radical Christian point of view, not everything about shari‘ah is bad. In fact, shari‘ah is consistent with Christianity. For example, both Christianity and Islam (shari‘ah) condemn drunkenness and immorality. Both promote strong family values. Both encourage compassion toward the poor and needy. Both practice prayer 770 William Miles, “Religious Pluralism in Northern Nigeria,” in N. Letzion and Randall Pouwels (eds.), The History of Islam in Africa (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000), 219. 771 Ryan, “In my end is my Beginning,” 218. 772 In his examination of Amadou Hampâté Bâ’s ecumenical interests during his adult years, Ralph Austen summarized Ba’s views on the differences between Islam and Christianity: “The various religions are to understand one another from their distinct positions rather than attempting to merge into some new common doctrine. See, Ralph Austen, “Christianity as seen by an African Muslim intellectual: Amadou Hampâté Bâ,” in Benjamin Soares, (ed.), Muslim-Christian Encounters in Africa, 145. 256

and fasting. If Christians and Muslims refused to listen to the gossip of their members and focused on the positive elements their religions 773 share, it would be easier to reconcile the areas of disagreement. A tooth-for-a-tooth approach may be a politically acceptable strategy for deal774 ing with opponents but McCain argues that Christ’s teachings in the gospels did not sanction such a solution for Christians’ handling of difference and aggression. McCain summarized five options the shari‘a riots have thrown on Nigerians: aggressive evangelism by Christians and Muslims to win over the country; the recourse to confrontations as has been the case in repeated clashes since 2000 with Muslims and Christian variously acting as aggressors; social se775 gregation with Christians and Muslims moving to predominantly Christian and Muslim areas including those moving away completely from parts of the country where they had resided for decades; secularism by which religious practices are separated from public life with its potential for becoming anti-religion; and consensus, deciding to work together on those issues common to both 776 religions and useful for progress. Having passed the first three stages, Nigeria is currently approaching the fourth: a probable march to secularism by which religious practices are separated from public life. This may not go with “becoming anti-religion,” as McCain suggests. But, definitely, it will be a most welcomed development to majority of Nigerians. And when it is in place, the atmosphere will be most conducive for McCain’s fifth option: “deciding to work together on those issues common to both religions and useful for progress.”

773 McCain, “Which Road Leads Beyond The Shariah Controversy?” 18-19. 774 See, David Fielding and Anja Shortland, “An Eye for an Eye, A Tooth for a Tooth. A study of Political Violence and Counter-Insurgency in Egypt,” paper provided by Department of Economics, University of Leicester in its series Discussion Papers in Economics. No. 05/11, May 2005. http://www.le.ac.uk/economics/research/dpseries.html Ogoh Alubo’s list of major civil unrests from 1999 to 2003 carries many instances of retaliatory attacks between ethnic groups representing different religious communities: Ogoh Alubo, “Citizenship and Nation Making in Nigeria,” 152-161. 775 Segregation has a political side, which manifested in political realignment and in the launching of political parties that were religiously defined. 776 Danny McCain, “Which Road Leads Beyond the Shari‘ah Controversy,” 7-16. 257

Fig. 22: Major riots with religious coloration, 2000–2006, and 2008777 Location (States)

Date

Details

Remarks

Kaduna

21-25 Feb. March 2000

Shari‘a I

About 5000 persons, comprising Christians and Muslims, were killed but official figures claim almost 2000.

Abia, Imo

22-23 May 2000

Shari‘a II Reprisal attacks

About 100 Hausa killed.

Plateau

Sept. 2001

Contest over land between Plateau indigenes and Hausa migrants.

Over 1000 killed in Jos. Tensions and killings intermittently occurred in 2002 and 2003.

Kano

Oct. 2001

Anti-US demonstration by local Muslims angry at the bombing of Afghanistan.

Over 1000 killed, mostly Christians.

Kaduna, Abuja, Bauchi

Nov. 2002

Furore over Miss World Pageant in Abuja. Riots in Kaduna named Shari‘a III.

Over 2000 killed in Kaduna. The insurgence in Abuja, where the contest took place, was less destructive of lives and property.

Reprisal attacks on Hausa Muslims.

Abia and Imo Plateau

May 2004

Unresolved tension from clashes since 2001 between Plateau indigenes and Hausa migrants. Fighting was triggered by an armed Fulani attack in February that killed 48 Christians.

Between 600 and 700 killed.

Kano

May 2004

Reprisal attacks on Christians in Kano for the killing of Hausa in Yelwa, Plateau State.

Non-Plateau Christians were the bulk of the victims in Kano.

Borno, Katsina

Feb. 2006

Protest rally against publication of cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in September 2005 degenerated into riots on Christians in Maiduguri in particular following efforts of the state police team to disband the crowd.

About 70 killed, 11 churches burnt.

Enugu, Anambra, Delta

Feb. 2006

Reprisal attacks on Hausa Muslims for killings in Maiduguri over cartoons.

Bauchi

Feb. 2008

258

One casualty according to State “A love affair.”* A young woman spurned the advances Police report. Police and Christian targets were destroyed. of a young Muslim man. In a last effort the man appealed to her to speak to him “in the name of the Messenger” to which she responded that she knew no messenger. Next day, she was sought out by a mob on charges of blasphemy against the Prophet.

*

This was the description of the incident given by Adanaya Talman-Gaya, the State Police Commissioner. Riots and mob action resulting from inter-faith love relationships were also reported for Plateau State in 2002. The New Nigeria newspaper and Newswatch magazine carried two cases that occurred in Yelwa and Wuse respectively: “An elicit love affair between a Hausa and a female indigene. 20 people reported dead. Many people injured. Worship centers, 6 petrol stations and 22 vehicles burned.” New Nigeria, 30 June 2002, 1-2. And, “Sectarian clash as a result of June 27 communal crisis between Hausa Fulani and Tarok. 20 people killed and property worth millions destroyed. The crisis re-occurred as a result of allegation that Christians in the area passed a law prohibiting their daughters from going out with Moslems.” Newswatch, 5 Au777 gust 2002, p. 3.

777 Numerous other cases of attacks occurred from 2000 until 2008, with casualties in single and double digits but those mentioned here were incidents of national concern and attacks that extended beyond their original locality. Figures of the dead were pooled from reports by BBC News and Human Rights Watch. See “Analysis: Nigeria's Sharia split,” BBC News, Tuesday, 7 January 2003; Human Rights Watch, “The “Miss World Riots”: Continued Impunity for Killings in Kaduna,” Vol. 15, No. 13 (A) July 2003. The figure I gave for the Bauchi 2008 incident came from the State Commissioner of Police. Nigerian Tribune, 5 February 2008.

259

CONCLUSION

The phenomenon of Islam in Igboland promises an interesting field of investigation to any scholar. This study has shown that Islam has chances of being introduced in supposedly unlikely environments and reveals the multilevel factors driving conversions to Islam in Igboland. This attempt, which built on studies by Ottenberg and Doi, should provoke further inquiries. Very little is known about the implantation of Islam in this part of Nigeria. There are gaps in our knowledge of events between 1910 and the decade of the 1930s, both with respect to northern Igboland and other parts of Igboland. The years 1940 until the eve of the civil war in 1967 require more indepth investigation. How were the early communities that emerged in northern Igboland and at Owerri managed and integrated within the mainstream? In what specific ways did the nonMuslim majority relate with the small and fledging Muslim communities? There is some uncomfortable silence, even in oral testimonies, and much speculation about these years. Although we have mentioned the likely process of the development of Islam, we know quite little to claim that what is documented is exhaustive. On the first Igbo convert to Islam, the question is: how did he communicate his faith to others? Was he able to get others to join him in Islam? About Nwagui: what exactly were the influences that brought about his conversion? Why did he prefer to revert to Islam outside the shores of Nigeria when all around him, or in close proximity to him, were Muslim acquaintances and colleagues? A few other issues will be taken up in the remaining pages. In Igboland, Islam is by far succeeding in the cities than in the villages. Igbo Muslims and clerics are divided on the question of their growth and numbers. Most interviewees, including Muslims from other parts of Nigeria living in Igboland, reported that the number of Igbo Muslims on the whole is appreciating very slowly. Wartime prejudice against the Hausa topped the list of factors inhibiting a quick success for Islam in the study area. The others include the apparent lack of assistance in proselytization from other Nigerian Muslim communities, and the Igbo social environment, which in their estimation has proved harsh to Islam. It was observed, though, that the furor over the shari‘a law and its implementation in Northern Nigeria de-motivated Igbo Muslim resulting in some cases of reconversion, but certainly no remarkable desertion from Islam. One problem affecting the population of Igbo converts is the preponderance of adventure seekers—persons whose primary interest in taking Islam is to 260

solve a need at the end of which they lose their interest in Islam and they re-integrate within their original religious community. While efforts have been devised to nurture their interest into fruition and ensure genuine conversion to Islam, the success rate with this category has remained low. The introduction of Islam brought changes in Igbo social and religious culture. It deepened the diversification of Igbo religious communities, thus giving the Igbo an additional worldview that is both linked to the Conventional (traditional) and Christian worldviews, and yet different, in many respects, from them. Hence, the Igbo can engage with life and pursue issues through one of three main religious philosophies: the Conventional, the Christian, and the Islamic. Surrounding these three are other sects whose philosophies are observed by a few other Igbo. The dominance of Christianity now appears contested by the presence of Muslim Igbo. In this wise, Islam presents a challenge to every other religious community, but especially to Christianity, to prove its relevance to the people in their present circumstances. There is the need for institutional self-evaluation for Igbo Christianity. (Yoruba Islam did this after some decades of successful Christian mission activity in Yorubaland that led to conversions from Islam to Christianity. Yoruba Muslims re-evaluated their tactics and their offers to their members, and devised new strategies with which they curbed the 778 switches to Christianity. ) With respect to Islam in Igboland and the Igbo claims of its threat on the dominance of Christianity, it is hereby proposed that the free market principle should be allowed. Individuals should sample all offers and decide which religion best suits their needs. This should make religious communities to market their “product” in the most advantageous way possible It is obvious, from henceforth, that political unity can no longer be taken for granted in Igboland. Political support is now known to run through religious and ethnic lines. Many Igbo Muslims confirmed support for the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), one of the major national parties, on the grounds that “Islam encourages Muslims to unite among themselves and to support fellow 779 Muslims.” Meanwhile, the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), the foremost ethnic-based party in Igboland, has just few Igbo Muslim supporters Nevertheless, Islam has served as the vehicle through which some Igbo widened their economic ties beyond the Nigerian space, incorporating countries in the Middle East and Asia. They have also derived other supports from these places, such as sponsorship for projects like the building of schools and civic 778 Peter Clarke, West Africa and Islam: A Study of Religious Development from the 8th to the 20th Century (London: Edward Arnold Publishers, 1982). 779 Mrs. Asmau Shittu, interview, Nsukka, May 2003. 261

centers, which have improved lives in some communities beyond just the group of Muslims intended. Further, the inclusion of the Igbo within the Muslim community of Nigeria has promoted the study of Arabic by Igbo Muslims, and therefore diversification in language competence, necessary for national and international political appointments. Igbo Muslim commitment to building of schools and their proposed establishment of Islamic banking and free health centers, if accomplished, will diversify social services in Igboland. Although at the moment these projects are geared towards proselytization, yet their relevance cannot be ignored especially given the decline in recent years in government spending on these services; a decline that is at variance with population growth. In this wise, Islam may provide the impetus for expanding the essential services’ sector in Igboland. The Igbo and the Hausa have much in common, an interviewee told me. Both are hard working and both are devoutly committed to causes they approve of. The Hausa derive their driving force from Islam and the Igbo from their omenani—traditional worldview. This similarity impelled those Igbo in favor of Islam as the rightful religion of the Igbo to argue that if these two ethnic groups will share same religious affiliation, Nigeria’s problems will be over. What one may perceive from this argument is a form of avocation for ethnic realignment in 21st century Nigeria since individualism did not foster socio-political and economic growth in the country during nearly a century in which the Hausa, the Igbo, and the Yoruba pursued tangential ethnic-based programmes. This recent idea for ethnic realignment through religious unity can be interpreted thus: if these two who seem to have more in common and, who, despite their differences, still work together, should team up, they will together provide leadership for the rest of the country. The following statement captures the essence of this projection: I am looking at the Hausa man. The typical Igbo man hated the Hausa man because he is Muslim. If the Hausa man and the Igbo man can come together—mind you in Nigeria the two closest ethnic groups are Igbo and Hausa even though the Igbo hates the Hausa to the core yet they are closer to each other in everything even in business—if that mutual trust is what will remain and the suspicion is off, I do not think that all the trouble we are having today in Nigeria will continue. … An Igbo man is ready to act. An Hausa man is ready to act. …

262

So, if these two groups can meet and become one…not only through 780 religion, but yes through religion, there will be no problem. Whether these calculations take cognizance of the numerical advantage such an alignment will give to these two ethnic groups, in contrast to the myriad other ethnic groups, is unclear; but given that numbers have historically determined the deposition of political and economic power in Nigeria, it to be expected that this advantage must have been taken into consideration. Coming to the current religious composition of the Igbo, an elderly Igbo Muslim remarked that there is no distinction between Conventionalists and Christians because members of these faiths always agree and are opposed to Is781 lam. While Igbo Christians and Igbo Muslims may think that the gulf between them is wide, and this applies also at the national level, it is indeed not as assumed. The basic social dissimilarity between them has revolved around manner of religious observances and the level of submission to own faiths. In this aspect Muslims have shown amazing commitment to their sacred teachings and a tall resistance to destabilizing modern secular values. They have also opposed secularism more strongly than Christians. These issues, however, call for some dialogue aimed at an acceptable option suitable to members of both religions. A watchword for inter-religious dialogue in Nigeria is Achebe’s remarks in 1972: “I never will take the stand that the Old must win or that the New must win. … No single man can be correct all the time, no single idea can be 782 totally correct.”

780 Alhaji Musa Ani, interview, Enugu, May 2003. 781 Mallam Omeje, interview, Ibagwa, May 2003. 782 Rose Ure Mezu, Chinua Achebe: The Man and His Works (London: Adonis & Abbey Publishers Ltd., 2006), 161-62. 263

ANNEX

List of interviewees Abdullahi Chinedu Igboama, b. 1961, Enugu, 2006. Abdullahi Chukwudi, b. 1966, Oguta, 2006. Abdullahi Umaru, b. 1961, inspector of police, Akokwa, 2006. Abdulaziz Ahmed Anosike, b. 1966, Islamic scholar, Nnewi, 2003. Abubakar Abugu, b. 1974, Enugu Ezike, 2003. Abubakar Sadiq, b. 1967, Jos, 2003. Abubakar Shuaib, b. 1988, undergraduate student of University of Nigeria, Nsukka, 2010. Adam Usman, c. 1953, Nsukka, 2003. Adamma Mohammed, b. 1971, Onitsha, 2006. Ahmed Etim Bassey, b. 1985, assistant chief imam of MOPOL mosque, Calabar, 2009. Aisha Audu, b. 1983, food vendor, Aba, 2006. Aishatu Chioma Jubril, b. 1977, Owerri, 2006. Alfa Jamir Abdukareem, b. 1970, Aba, 2003. Alhaji Abdulaziz Ude, business tycoon, Lagos, 2006. Alhaji Abubakar Asabi, b. 1954, chairman, Rivers State council of imams and scholars, Port Harcourt, 2009. Alhaji Ahmed Adekola, chief imam, Asaba, 2005. Alhaji Ahmed Onyema, b. 1941, Ezzamgbo, 2003. Alhaji Ahmed Ozurumba, secretary-general, Imo State Muslim Council, Owerri, 2006. Alhaji Ali Ukiwo, b. 1950, Umuahia, 2006. Alhaji Baba Jaro, b. 1951, chairman, Muslim Pilgrims’ Board, Uyo, 2009. Alhaji Badaru Eze, b. c. 1931, Nsukka, 2006. Alhaji Buba Abdullahi Kedemure, b. 1971, cattle merchant, Lokpanta, 2006. Alhaji Danladi, b. 1950, Owerri, 2006. Alhaji Dauda Onyeagocha, chief imam of Owerri central mosque, 2006. Alhaji Haruna Sule, Sarikin Hausa of Enugu, 2003. Alhaji Ibrahim Iwuanyanwu, b. 1934, Mbaitoli, 2006. 264

Alhaji Ibrahim Musa, b. 1948, Uga, 2006. Alhaji Idris Bashiri, b. 1976, imam of Aba central mosque, 2006. Alhaji Idris Okonkwo Eze, b. 1953, tailor, Nsukka, 2003. Alhaji Isa Ugiri, b. 1926, imam, Aboh Mbaise, 2006. Alhaji Maikano Mohammed, b. c. 1950, Lokpanta, 2006. Alhaji Mairiga Diko, b. 1946, grandson of Diko—first Muslim settler in Eastern Nigeria, Elele, 2009. Alhaji Mohammed Umar, b. 1972, itinerant trader, Aba, 2006. Alhaji Musa Ani, b. 1955, secretary to the Islamic Center in Enugu, 2003. Alhaji Mutalib, b. 1940, Ibagwa, 2003. Alhaji Mutui Osuji, b. 1937, public relations officer, Islamic Center, Enugu, 2003. Alhaji Nuhu Lebele, b. 1966, Aba, 2006. Alhaji Omar Farouk, b. 1949, secretary-general of Rivers State Islamic Council, Port Harcourt, 2009. Alhaji S. Okah, b. 1956, Islamic teacher, Amasiri, 2003. Alhaji Sadauki, b. 1966, Sarikin Hausa of Uyo, 2009. Alhaji Sani Ibrahim, b. 1957, tailor, Amaji, 2003. Alhaji Umaru, Enugu Ezike, 2004. Aminatu Nze, b. 1977, Owerri, 2006. Audu Munagoro, b. 1946, Nnewi, 2006. Baba Ibrahim, Sarikin Hausa of Aba, 2005. Barrister Hamza Aduku, Enugu Ezike, 2003. Bilikisu Adamma Ibrahim, b. 1954, Owerri, 2006. Charity Kolawole, Nsukka, 2006. Chiamaka Ibrahim, b. 1952, Onitsha, 2006. Chief Abubakar Bello, Sarkin Hausa of Aba, 2003. Chief Ani Nwoke, b. c. 1930, village head of Akanu Ohafia, 2005. Chief B. C. Nwosu, b. c. 1937, Umuahia, 2006. Chief Chris Osuagwu, b. 1959, Abia State Commissioner for Public Utilities, Umuahia, 2006. Chief F. A. Ibe, b. 1941, Mbano, 2003. Chief Godwin Ngwuli, Umuahia, 2006. Chief Nnamdi Obi, Nnewi, 2004. Chief P. E. Nwainyinya, b. 1951, Abakaliki 2003. 265

Chika Abdul, b. 1974, Owerri, 2006. Cynthia Audu, b. 1983, undergraduate of University of Nigeria, Nsukka, 2006. Dauda Arua, Abakaliki, 2003. Dauda Ojobe, b. 1928, Enugu Ezike, 2003. Dr. Chidiebere Ude, b. 1967, Umunneochi Local Government Chairman, Lokpanta, 2006. Dr. John O. Alutu, Nnewi, 2004. Dr. Mrs. Mary Igwe, b. 1955, Lecturer, Isuochi, 2006. Dr. Oluyemi Akinloye, b. 1968, Berlin, 2008. Dr. P. A. Ezema, Lecturer, Nsukka, 2003. Engr. Yahaya Dutse, President, Association of Muslim Professionals of Rivers State, Port Harcourt, 2009. Garba Oheme, b. c. 1908, Enugu Ezike, 2003. Garuba Haruna, b. c. 1964, Awka, 2006. Hajia Khadija Essen, b. 1954, Uyo, 2009. Hajia Maimana Yankwero, b. 1976, Onitsha, 2006. Hajia Sayatu Aja, b. 1960, granddaughter of Sheikh Ibrahim Nwagui and president of Young Muslim Women Association, Abakaliki, 2003. Hamza Garuba, b. 1982, Ogrute, 2006. Harun Eze, b. 1979, president of the Muslim Students Society, University of Abuja, 2005. Haruna Danjuma, b. 1972, Owa, 2006. Haruna Sule jnr, Enugu, 2003. Hayatu Adamu, b. c. 1944, cattle merchant and Sarikin Hausa of Lokpanta, 2006. His Royal Highness, (Dr.) C. E. Emetuma, of Akabo autonomous community, b. 1954, Owerri, 2010. His Royal Highness, Odogwu Eze, of Umurido Okigwe, b. 1944, 2006. Ibrahim Agbedo, b. 1951, Enugu Ezike, 2004. Imam Hassan Omeh Musa, c. 1947, tailor and the imam of Obukpa mosque, 2003. Imam Ibrahim Eze, c. 1938, chief imam of Nsukka town central mosque, 2003. Ismaila Ngwu, b. 1971, radio mechanic, Amaoda, 2003. Jabir Osuji, b. 1977, undergraduate student of University of Maiduguri, Enugu, 2003. Jameel Okoroama, b. 1983, Asaba, 2005. 266

Jenini Lawal, b. 1968, Enugu, 2003. Justus Jacob, Enugu, 2003. Kabiru Hudu, Lokpanta, 2006. Mallam Abubakr, chief imam, Awka, 2003. Mallam Ahmed Omeje, b. c. 1936, Ibagwa, 2003. Mallam Ibrahim, 1950, Islamic preacher, Umuahia, 2006. Mallam Ibrahim, b. 1938, trader, Port Harcourt, 2006. Mallam Ibrahim, chief imam of Hausa mosque, Ontisha, 2005. Mallam Isa Ekeji, b. 1938, Mbaise, 2006. Mallam Lawal Wakili, b. 1966, Nsukka, 2003. Mallam Mohammed Ibeh, b. 1959, mosque keeper, Mbaise, 2006. Mallam Omada, imam, Enugu Ezike, 2004. Mallam S. M. Suberu, leader of the Yoruba Muslim community, Onitsha, 2005. Mallam Yusuf Ude, b. c. 1930, Amaukpo Afikpo, 2006. Michael Mmadu, b. 1964, Enugu, l 2006. Miss Halima Umaru, b. 1989, Onitsha, 2006. Miss Sefiyat Abdullahi, b. 1977, assistant director of an Islamic nursery school, Nsukka, 2003. Mohammed Tafida, b. c. 1951, Isiokpo, 2006. Monsurat Ego Kareem, b. 1968, Owerri, 2006. Mourihatu, b. 1974, Lagos, 2003. Mr. Abdullahi Shehu, Secretary of the Hausa Community in Nnewi, 2004. Mr. Abubakar Abugu, b. 1974, an apprentice, Amufie, 2003. Mr. C. Ogbodo, b. 1971, Nkanu, 2003. Mr. Eze Ezekiel, b. 1966, civil servant, Abakaliki, 2003. Mr. I. Ala, b. 1941, Mbaise, 2006. Mr. Ikechukwu Ileka, Nnewi, 2004. Mr. Innocent Okeke, b. c. 1954, Lokpanta, 2006. Mr. Inusa, Alor Agu, 2003. Mr. J. Igwe, b. 1969, banker, Port Harcourt, 2003. Mr. John Ade, b. 1971, Ijebu Ode, 2003. Mr. John Azi, Awgu, 2003. Mr. John Ezeama, b. 1953, Adani, 2006. 267

Mr. Jubril Ocha, b. 1958, Kaduna, 2003. Mr. Nnamdi Okonkwo, b. 1977, yam trader, Aba, 2006. Mr. Nnamdi Uzoigwe, politician, Enugu, 2003. Mr. Obele Maduegbunam, b. 1969, Umulokpa, 2006. Mr. U. Nwosu, b. 1977, Police Inspector, Aba, 2006. Mr. Ugonoh S. Mohammed, Enugu, 2003. Mr. Vincent Okezie, c. 1936, a retired teacher, Ezinifite, February 2006. Mr. William Uche Ohia, b. 1934, retired principal, Isiokpo, 2006. Mrs. Aishat Adenikan, b. 1973, Port Harcourt, 2009. Mrs. Amina Ihuoma Kundi, b. 1980, president, indigenous Muslim women forum, Port Harcourt, 2009. Mrs. Asmau Shittu, b. 1969, Nsukka, May 2003. Mrs. Chinyere Okolie, b. 1963, school principal, Enugu, 2003. Mrs. Hawakwunu J. Okoroafor, b. 1946, Inyi, 2005. Mrs. Maria Nwachukwu, b. 1937, Enohia Itim, 2006. Mrs. Memuna Eze, b. 1958, Nsukka, 2003. Mrs. Ramatu Mohammed Omeje, b. c. 1930, Enugu Ezike, 2003. Mrs. Ribbihabib Sheriff, b. 1966, Enugu, 2003. Mrs. Veronica Nwoga, b. c. 1946, Lopkanta, 2006. Musa Abdullah, b. 1972, yam trader, Aba, 2006. Nathan Okeke, b. 1969, Kaduna, 2006. Nkiru Ezenagu, Kaduna, 2006. Nkiru Nduka, b. 1971, Kaduna, 2006. Obiageli Yakubu, b. 1974, interview, Onitsha, 2006. Olayi Saibou, b. 1967, Izza, 2006. Rose Nduka, b. 1975, Kaduna, 2006. S. M. Audu, b. 1966, tailor, Nsukka, 2003. S. O. Okocha, b. c. 1920, Asaba, 2003. Saka Adekunle, b. 1974, Akokwa, 2006. Sayeed Suleiman, b. 1975, Ogrute, 2003. Shehu Abdulkadir Sunni, Aba, 2003. Shehu Kangiwa, b. 1945, Owerri, 2006.

268

Sheikh Adam Idoko, b. 1958, chief imam, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, mosque, 2003. Sheikh Haroun Aja, b. 1958, Islamic instructor, Abakaliki, 2003. Sheikh Idris Al-Hassan, b. 1959, director of the Islamic Centre in Enugu, 2003. Sheikh Obini Ekpe, b. 1958, lecturer, Abakiliki, 2004. Sheikh Saliu Abugu, b. 1959, Amufie, 2003. Sheikh Trevor Saleh, b. 1968, Ikot Ekpene, 2009. Shittu Nwabueze, b. 1955, Ukpani, 2006. Uchenna Usman, b. 1966, Umuoji, 2006. Ujunwa Abubakar, b. 1969, Orba, 2006. Umaru Jalingo, b. c. 1954, cattle merchant, Lokpanta, 2006. Usman Ali, b. c. 1938, Akokwa, 2006. Yahaya Ahmed, Kaduna, 2003. Yusuf Item, b. 1976, Abakaliki, 2004. Zachary Obaseki, Aba, 2003.

Archive Sources “Intelligence Report on the people of Enugu Ezike, Nsukka Division,” File OP 1071/ ONDIST 12/1/709 (October 1934), National Archives, Enugu. “Intelligence Report on the Agbani Akpugo Group, Udi Division. October 1934,” File: ONDIST 12/1/708, National Archives, Enugu. “Intelligence Report on the people of Enugu Ezike, Nsukka Division,” File OP 1071/ ONDIST 12/1/709 (October 1934), National Archives, Enugu. “Intelligence Report on Eteh Clan, Nsukka Division, Onitsha Province,” File: EP 9262a/CSE 1/85/4782, National Archives, Enugu. “A Report on the History and Organization of the Ikwerri People living in the Elele and Nkarahia Native Court Areas: Ahoada Division.” File: AHODIST 14/1/217 (1931), National Archives, Enugu. “Owerri Province, Hausa Settlements,” File ON 3851, RIVPROF 8/9/321, National Archives, Enugu. “Hausa Settlements: Owerri Province,” File: C20/24 UMPROF 1/1/3, National Archives, Enugu. “Status of Hausa chiefs,” File AHODIST 14/1/436, National Archives, Enugu. “Hausa Chiefs,” File CSE 1/85/9798, National Archives, Enugu. 269

“Headship of the Hausa and Nupe Communities at Enugu, Onitsha Province,” File: CSE 1/85/6145, National Archives, Enugu. “Report on the Southern Nigeria Census, 1911,” File: 4179/1912, National Archives, Enugu. “Minute M.P. 3402/03 of 12.10.1903 by the Acting High Commissioner Leslie Probyn in the file Aro Dist. 1/7/33,” National Archives, Enugu. “List of county Grant-aided School,” File: NS DIV 12/1/137, National Archives, Enugu. “History of Islamic political propaganda in Nigeria,” File ZARPROF C.7/1927, National Archives, Kaduna. “Population Statistics,” File: KANOPROF 3530, National Archives, Kaduna. “Kolanut Trade,” SOKPROF 260, National Archives, Kaduna “Report by M. Mangin, Head of the Department of Muslim Affairs on his visit to Nigeria in March 1952,” ZARPROF C. 2425 18/6/52, National Archives, Kaduna. “The Position of Non-Northerners in the Service of the Northern Regional Government,” KANOPROF 8237, National Archives, Kaduna. “A Report of a Missionary Journey in Southern Nigeria by James Johnson, 19031904.” G3A3/09-10 Niger Misson, and G3A3/011-12, Niger Mission, November 1910. Primitive Methodist Missionary Society Archive Reports, Box No. 1139, Quarterly Reports, Bende, 1910–1911. Foreign Field of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, Volumes 1-XXVI (Methodist Missionary Society Library, MMSL X O 4.)

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INDEX

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